 | This page containsmaterial that is kept because it is consideredhumorous. Such material is not meant to be taken seriously. |
 | Please noteArticles about things considered unusual may be accepted in Wikipedia if they otherwise fulfill thecriteria for inclusion. This page is not an article, and the only criterion for inclusion is consensus that an article fits on this page.Lists of unusual things in Wikipedia mainspace (seeCategory:Lists of things considered unusual) should have an external reference for each entry that specifically classifies it as unusual, to avoid making it apoint of view (POV) fork oforiginal research. Still, all such lists risk being deleted for lack of a neutral definition of what counts as "unusual". |
Of the over seven million articles in the English Wikipedia there are some articles that Wikipedians have identified as being somewhat unusual. These articles are verifiable, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are a bit odd, whimsical, or something one would not expect to find inEncyclopædia Britannica. We should take special care to meet the highest standards of an encyclopedia with these articles lest they make Wikipedia appearidiosyncratic. If you wish to add an article to this list, the article in question should preferably meet one or more of these criteria:
This definition is not precise or absolute; some articles could still be considered unusual even if they do not fit these guidelines.
Each entry on this list should be an article on its own (not merely a section in a less unusual article) and of decent quality, and in large meetingWikipedia's manual of style. For unusual contributions that are of greater levity, seeWikipedia:Silly Things.
In this list, a star (
) indicates afeatured article. A plus (
) indicates agood article.
| Breast-shaped hill | Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name toManchester. |
| Bookland | The quasi-fictional country all books come from, according to barcodes. |
| Eiffel Tower replicas and derivatives | Not as unique as you might have thought. |
| Folly | Buildings prized for their uselessness. |
| Gravity hill | A hill that gives the illusion of objects rollingup it. |
| List of cities claimed to be built on seven hills | Almost 100 different cities across all inhabited continents, trying to get the credibility ofhaving something in common with Rome. |
| List of micronations | Ever wanted to start your own country? |
| List of tautological place names | Places that, when translated, have the same name as his title. Examples would include the Sahara Desert and the River Avon. |
| Phantom island | Like islands, but they don't exist. |
| Pizza farm | All the ingredients of pizza, grown in one convenient location! |
| Recursive islands and lakes | Islands in lakes in islands in lakes in islands... |
| Rocket garden | Landscaping and rocketry, together at last. |
| Spite house | Various houses built solely out of spite for their neighbors. |
| Valeriepieris circle | An imaginary circle that contains the majority of the world's population, popularized onReddit. |
 | Abuja Airplane House | An aeroplane-themed villa in the capital of Nigeria. |
|---|---|---|
 | Akon City | A2000s R&B singer tried to create his very own city in his nativeSenegal, based around his very owncryptocurrency "Akoin". |
| Bir Tawil | One of the few places on Earth not claimed by any country. An American trekked there and claimed it in 2014 as the Kingdom of North Sudan so he could make his daughter a princess. | |
 | Blue Desert | Following theEgypt–Israel peace treaty, theUnited Nations gave several tons of blue paint to a Belgian artist, so he could commemorate it by painting a line of boulders in theSinai Desert blue. |
 | Boulders Beach | A beach on the Southern African coast, near an urban residential area, known for being home to a colony of several thousand penguins. |
 | Congo Pedicle | What happens when a tyrannical king decides he wants to hunt game in a swamp. |
 | Dallol | A region surrounding a volcano in Ethiopia, known for its alien-looking bright colours, and populated by vast salt plains and extremely hot acidic sulfur-emitting hot springs that, according to some studies, lack even the smallest microbes. There is anow-abandoned town of the same name nearby, which formerly held the record of the hottest inhabited place on Earth. |
| Gaet'ale Pond | A small lake in Ethiopia that was created in 2005 after an earthquake. It's not bitter, it's justreally, really salty. |
 | Giraffe Manor | A hotel in suburbanNairobi where you can eat alongside one of the world's most endangered giraffe subspecies. |
 | Hoba meteorite | The largest intact meteorite in the world. |
 | Jacob's Ladder | It's allvery downhill from here. |
| Kalakuta Republic | A compound housingFela Kuti, his family, band musicians and recording studio, which he declared independent and used to criticize theNigerian military junta of the 1970s. They responded by raiding it with over a thousand soldiers, setting it alight, and throwing Fela's mother out of the window. |
 | Kanye West | Part of the village ofKanye along withKanye East. |
 | Lake Nyos | A lake in northwesternCameroon thatreleased gas in 1986, killing 1,746 people. One of three known gassy lakes, the others beingLake Monoun andLake Kivu. |
| Lake Retba | A lake inSenegal that is naturally pink and is one of the saltiest lakes in the world. |
 | Mauritania Railway | Mauritania's entire national rail network consists of a single line connecting the centre of the country's iron mining industry with the port city ofNouadhibou. Said line is also home to the world's longest and heaviest trains, filled withiron ore and as long as 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in length. |
 | Oklo | The former site of the world's onlynatural nuclear fission reactors. |
 | Palácio de Ferro | A bright yellow iron building inLuanda dating back to the colonial era, that is noted for the fact that there is no record of who or why it was built - although legend has it that it was designed byGustave Eiffel, architect of theEiffel Tower. |
  | Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera | A rock on the Moroccan coast connected to the mainland by an 80-metre-wide (260 ft)tombolo; it is owned by Spain. In 2012,four Moroccan irredentists attempted to storm and take over the territory. |
| Republic of Benin (1967) | One of the shortest-lived states in history, it was independent for only seven hours (07:00 to 14:00 on 19 September 1967). |
 | Socotra | A Yemeni island that is geographically part of Africa, and is known as "the most alien-looking place on Earth" due to its strange flora. This includes the"dragon blood tree" and atree which produces cucumbers. |
 | La Tante DC10 Restaurant | A groundedMcDonnell Douglas DC-10 passenger aircraft inAccra that has been converted into a giant plane-shaped restaurant. |
 | Tromelin Island | An island near Madagascar that is famous for being the site of a major humanitarian disaster in the 18th century. |
| The Owl House | Not theacclaimed animated LGBT fantasy cartoon that aired on Disney Channel; this is an outdoor museum that was created by a reclusive outsider artist who decorated her inherited house with over 300 glass and concrete sculptures of owls, camels, peacocks, pyramids, and other forms. |
| Umoja | An entire women's-only village in Kenya established in response toviolence against women inSamburu tribal society. |
 | Blood Falls | A naturally occurring plume of saltwater that is blood red thanks to its highiron oxide content. |
|---|---|---|
 | Mawson Peak | The tallest mountain in theCommonwealth of Australia is not on the mainland, but on a barren, uninhabited island more than 3,800 kilometres (2,400 mi) away. |
| McMurdo Dry Valleys | An area of Antarctica that contains anextremely saline body of water and has not experienced rainfall for over two million years. |
 | Marie Byrd Land | The largest unclaimed territory in the world. Notable for being bigger thanMongolia, having one of Antarctica's biggest human bases, and being the setting ofThe Thing. |
 | New Swabia | The Nazi territory in Antarctica. |
| Pole of Inaccessibility research station | A short-lived Soviet research station in Antarctica that is now completely covered by snow - save for a small bust ofVladimir Lenin peeking out the ground. |
 | Villa Las Estrellas | One of only two civilian settlements in Antarctica. |
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 | 798 Art Zone | How an abandoned complex of military factory buildings became the heart of Beijing's modern art scene. |
|---|---|---|
 | Aoshima, Ehime | An island where cats outnumber humans 36:1. Weirdly not the only cat island in Japan (see:Tashirojima). |
 | Artsvashen | An Armenian town surrounded and controlled byAzerbaijan. One of a number of similar towns on this border; others includeYukhari Askipara,Barxudarlı andKarki. |
 | Bokhdi Amusement Park | An Afghan amusement park that went viral after theTaliban members rode its rides, but was destroyed the next day for containing idols, which are consideredShirk in Islam. |
 | Bust of Ferdinand Marcos | AMount Rushmore in the Philippines, right down to displacing its indigenous inhabitants. It was mercifully blown up by rebels in 2002. |
 | Camp Bonifas | The bunkers on this golf course feature machine-guns and landmines. |
 | Chao Mae Tuptim shrine | A shrine dedicated to penises inBangkok, built in the early 20th century by a Thai businessman, on the edge of his property. |
 | Christmas Island | A small island and external territory of Australia close to Indonesia that is mainly known for having up to 100 million crabs migrate to spawn there every year. |
| Curry Shop Shimizu | A famous restaurant known for its "poo-flavored curry", not only that, it was also founded bya porn star. |
 | Dahala Khagrabari | India inside Bangladesh inside India inside Bangladesh. Formerly the only third-orderenclave in the world. |
 | Darvaza gas crater | A flaming, 70 m (230 ft) wide, 30 m (98 ft) deep crater in the middle of theKarakum Desert, on fire since 1971. |
 | Dhekelia Power Station | A Cypriot power station that provides power to a British military base that surrounds it. |
| Diomede Islands | Two islands in the Bering Strait separated by 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) and21 hours' time difference. | |
| Endoji Shopping Arcade Statues | The statues of famousSengoku period warlords which were often subjected to vandalism |
| Fukushima Prefecture salient | Also known as the "umbilical cord", asalient in Fukushima Prefecture, which is 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) long and, at its narrowest, only 90 centimetres (35 in) wide. It also follows a trail on amountain ridge. |
 | Gangkhar Puensum | The tallest mountain nobody has ever summitted, as the Bhutanese government has prohibited mountaineering since 2003. |
| Gate Tower Building | A skyscraper in Japan that has a highway offramp passing through its fifth, sixth and seventh floors. |
| Hallstatt (China) | An ongoing replica construction of a town in Austria. |
| Haesindang Park | Also known as "Penis Park", this is a park on the Korean coast, known for being full of wooden statues of penises, apparently to do with local shamanic folklore. |
| Hanazono Room | An indoor swimming pool in Japan used as the site for many pornographic films. |
 | Hằng Nga Guesthouse | Vietnam's most fantastical building? |
 | High-Heel Wedding Church | A glass slipper that Prince Charming would struggle to find a fit for. |
  | Immovable Ladder | A ladder against a window that can't be moved unless six separate religious groups agree to it. |
| Imsil Cheese Theme Park | I dunno, this place seems a little cheesy to me. |
| Jackson Hole, China | A planned resort town outside of Beijing that is based off asmall town in Wyoming. |
 | Jatinga | TheBermuda Triangle of birds. |
 | Jaxa (state) | A 17th-century microstate located on the Amur River between the Tsardom of Russia and Qing China, with a population mostly consisting of Poles and Ukrainians. |
 | Jewish Autonomous Oblast | In the depths of EasternSiberia there's a place with street names inYiddish, even though 99% of its population is not Jewish. |
| Kabul synagogue | The last synagogue inKabul was inhabited by two men, who both ended up being imprisoned by theTaliban because they got annoyed by the two constantly complaining about each other, before later being converted by one of the men into a kebab restaurant. |
 | Kai Tak Airport | A major international airport closed in 1998 where planesliterally almost crashed constantly into the city due to a right-hand turn over the city. |
| Kamuning Footbridge | Nicknamed as "Mount Kamuning" and "Stairway to Heaven". It is infamous for its steep height. |
| Karni Mata Temple | A marble temple famous for 25,000 reveredblack rats that live in the temple who are considered the ancestors ofCharans. |
 | Khewra Salt Mine | One of the largest salt mines in the world, it was allegedly discovered byAlexander the Great's horses. |
 | Kijong-dong | Two unique Korean villages, separated by theDMZ and notable for their arms race of giant flagpoles. The North Korean village contains apropaganda-blasting loudspeaker andzero residents to hear it. Meanwhile its Southern counterpart forbids residency except to families that have been there since before theWar, and grows "DMZ rice" that makes the farmers exceptionally wealthy. |
| Daeseong-dong | |
| Korea Central Zoo | A zoo with such wondrous animals as achimpanzee with a smoking habit, aparrot that sings the praises ofKim Il-sung, anddogs. |
| Kowloon Walled City | A former enclave in the city of Hong Kong, known for lawlessness and extremely cramped conditions before it was destroyed and turned into a park. |
| Li's field | A supposed forcefield that explains why tropical cyclones swerve away from Hong Kong. |
| Living root bridge | Double-decker suspension bridges formed of living plantaerial roots ofrubber fig trees bytree shaping common in the southern part of theNortheast Indian state ofMeghalaya. |
| Love Land | An erotic-themed sculpture park onJeju Island in South Korea. |
| Maijishan Grottoes | A massive complex of hundreds of man-made caves, stairways and thousands of Buddhist sculptures carved into the side of a mountain in the fifth century, high above the surface. |
 | Masuleh | A village built on the side of a mountain in such a way that most of the walkable space in the village is on the rooftops of the buildings of the layer below. |
| Missing Post Office | Where all the world's undeliverable post goes. |
| Modern Toilet Restaurant | Wait, that isn't the kind of bowl I want to eat out of... |
 | Nahwa | One of only eight counter-enclaves (enclaves of enclaves). |
 | Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic | A landlockedexclave ofAzerbaijan (it is surrounded by three different countries rather than only one, so it is not anenclave). |
| Nanjie | A settlement inHenan Province that is often described as "China's lastMaoist village", maintaining a collectively-owned economy and public displays and statues of historicMarxist-Leninist leaders. |
| National Fisheries Development Board building | Mimetic architecture inHyderabad: a building shaped like a humongous fish. |
| North Sentinel Island | A small island in theBay of Bengal, known for being inhabited by a virtuallyuncontacted isolationist tribe who attack all outsiders who attempt to land on their island. The Indian government leaves them alone, outlawing all travel to the island - although that hasn't stopped some foolish travellers from trying. |
| National Route 339 | A national highway with a staircase in the middle. |
| Neutrality Monument | A massive legged arch built in the capital of Turkmenistan by theeccentric former dictator to commemorate the fact that Turkmenistan is officially neutral. Also used to feature a gold-plated statue of him on top that constantly rotated so that it always faced the sun. |
| Okinoshima (Fukuoka) | An entire island that is considered akami in theShinto religion, and is continuously inhabited by lone Shinto priests who spend ten-day shifts guarding the shrine on the island. Women are prohibited due to theirmenstruation, as blood is considered impure in Shinto. |
| Ōkunoshima | An island between the Japanese home islands ofHonshu andShikoku formerly home to a chemical weapons plant in WW2, now home to a huge population of feral but largely tame rabbits. |
| Om Banna | An Indian shrine dedicated to a supposedly-sentient motorbike. |
 | Omsk Metro | A metro system with only one station and a total length of zero kilometres. |
| Peanut Hole | A delightfully named patch of ocean in theSea of Okhotsk that is totally surrounded byRussia'sEEZ but not inside it. Often the subject of foreignoverfishing. |
| Porcelain Palace | China's largest and most lavish palace - that is dedicated to the humblepublic toilet. |
| Rednaxela Terrace | A street in Hong Kong, whose name was reportedly reversed due to a clerical error. |
| Robot Building | That's not a giant robot looming in Bangkok; it's just a bank's headquarters. |
| Roopkund | A small lake in the Himalayas known for mysteriously having hundreds of ancient human skeletons along its edges. |
| Ryugyong Hotel | Once, it would have been the world's tallest hotel – except it lacked windows, fittings, or fixtures for over twenty years. |
| — | San Serriffe | A lesser-known island in the Indian Ocean, subject of the April 1, 1977Guardian. |
| Sansha | A disputed prefecture-level city inHainan consisting of a collection ofatolls and reefs throughout theSouth China Sea. |
| Kingdom of Sedang | In the 1880s, a French adventurer created a kingdom in Vietnam. |
| Seikan Tunnel Tappi Shakō Line | The closed funicular that connects an underground train station inside theSeikan Tunnel with a museum. |
| Sasmuan | The municipality was formerly calledSexmoán. But due to the sexual connotations of the name, it was changed to the current name in 1991. |
| Shani Shingnapur | A holy Hindu village that doesn't have any doors. |
| Shingō, Aomori | A town in Japan that is (supposedly) home to thetomb ofJesus. The story behind the supposed tomb is even odder. |
 | Snake Temple | A Chinese temple most notable for having living snakes within its compounds. It also has a snake breeding area. |
| Sobieto | Its name could be interpreted as "Soviet" Island, despite that the name is probably far more ancient than communism... |
 | Sokh District | An exclave ofUzbekistan enclaved withinKyrgyzstan with a 99%Tajik population. |
| Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China | The Communist Chinese government elects delegates to represent an island it has never owned or controlled. |
| Tashirojima | An island inJapan notable for being full of cats. Weirdly not the only cat island in Japan (see:Aoshima, Ehime). |
| Thames Town | An entire replica English-style town built as an upscale planned community near Shanghai. Mostly empty, but a popular destination for wedding photography. |
 | The Line | Aplanned city in Saudi Arabia that was originally planned to be a 110-mile long straight line and has been described by critics as "dystopian." |
| The world's smallest park | The smallest park in the world – 0.24 m2 (370 sq in) – inNagaizumi,Shizuoka. |
| Thimmamma Marrimanu | A single tree with a canopy that covers 19,107 m2, and consequently is considered sacred among followers of several Indian religions. |
 | Tomb of Suleyman Shah | One of the burial sites of the first Ottoman emperor's grandfather is part ofTurkey despite being 27 kilometres (17 mi) south of the country's border withSyria. |
 | Trunyan | A village in Bali where residents openly lay corpses on the ground and wait for them to decompose instead of cremating or burying them. |
| Tsu Station | Bykana, the tersest railway station in Japan, servingthe capital of an almost as terse prefecture. By stroke count, the tersest in the world. By transliteration, onlysecond-tersest. |
| Underground City (Beijing) | A massive complex of tunnels underneath Beijing, built in the Cold War as a nuclear bomb shelter, fitted with facilities such as schools, clinics, factories and even an ice rink. |
 | Villaggio Mall | A Qatari shopping mall built to resemble an Italian town, with Venetian canals andgondolas. Also notorious for being the site of a deadly nursery fire in 2012. |
| Wang Saen Suk | A place in Thailand dedicated to materializedBuddhist hell scenes. |
| Wonderland Amusement Park | The largest abandoned amusement park in Asia. |
| X-Seed 4000 | The tallest building ever designed, standing 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) tall and housing 500,000 to 1,000,000 people on 800 floors. It is, however, "never meant to be built". |
| Yokohama Chinatown | Despite having a small population of around 3,000 to 4,000, it remains the biggest and most notableChinatown in Japan today. |
| Yongning Pagoda | A 6th-centurypagoda that was possibly the tallest structure in the world until it was destroyed by lightning 18 years after its completion. |
| Zhangye National Geopark | A national park known for its mountains with natural multicoloured stripes. |
| Zheltuga Republic | An illegal gold mining settlement that developed into a thriving unrecognised country, only surviving because the Chinese government was unaware that it existed. |
 | Abode of Chaos | An artist buys an old scenic house in a rural town and transforms it into a replica warzone that serves as an open-air museum of radical avant-garde art, angering locals enough to sue him in France's supreme court. |
|---|---|---|
 | Ängelholm UFO memorial | A memorial to a reputedUFO landing in Sweden. |
 | Argleton | A non-existent town inLancashire,England that appeared onGoogle Maps. |
 | Baarle-Hertog | Two municipalities, one of Belgium and one of the Netherlands, thatsurround each other twice and many times over. Some houses and shops are in both countries. |
 | Baarle-Nassau | |
 | Barack Obama Plaza | Amotorway service area inCounty Tipperary, Ireland celebrating the work and Irish heritage ofU.S. PresidentBarack Obama. |
| Barcelona Supercomputing Center | A supercomputer in a medieval chapel. |
| Barentsburg | A completely Russian town, inhabited by Russians, with Russian buildings, supported financially by the Russian government, located in Norway. |
 | Barra Airport | An airport that only operates when the tide allows. |
| Battersea Power Station tube station | A train station named after a non-train station. |
| Beans and Bacon mine | With such little ventilation, visitors may want to avoid any source of ignition. Nearby mines are not to be outdone and have the following names: Mule Spinner, Frogs Hole, Cackle Mackle, and Wanton Legs. |
 | Berlin Brandenburg Airport | An airport in Berlin whose construction is finished but which is unfinished in other areas. Construction was finished in 2012; however, the opening date was repeatedly pushed back as the fire suppression system was installed incorrectly. It finally opened in October 2020. |
 | Bielefeld conspiracy | TheBielefeld-Verschwörung tries to hide the horrible truth about a city inNorth Rhine-Westphalia,Germany that doesn't exist ... well, maybe. |
 | Brennender Berg | A German coal mine on fire since 1668. |
| The Broomway | Perhaps the most dangerous path in the world. Would you join the hundred others who died walking the invisible path? |
 | Brusio spiral viaduct | The title says it all, really. |
 | Bucket Lake | A lake that only exists thanks to the wanton misuse of a plastic bucket. |
 | Bunkers in Albania | Enver Hoxha loved them so much he decided to fill his country with over 173,000 of them. |
 | Büsingen am Hochrhein | A German town that isfully contained within Switzerland. |
| Butt Hole Road | A tiny residential street in the UK that was so infamous for its name that it became a tourist attraction. |
 | Buzludzha monument | A futurist monument built by theBulgarian Communist Party that looks like a communist spaceship – especially on the inside. |
 | Carpatho-Ukraine | The third-shortest-lived state in history (seeBenin Republic in Nigeria); it was independent for only 24 hours. |
| Cerne Abbas Giant | An indecent chalk man in the English countryside. |
| Clachan Bridge | Walk across the Atlantic in just 30 seconds! |
 | Colletto Fava | A 1,500-metre (4,900 ft) hill with a 61-metre (200 ft) stuffed pinkbunny on top. |
| Cologne sewerage system | Probably the only sewers with a Chandelier Hall that hosts music performances. Probably. |
 | Couto Misto | Ade facto independentmicrostate on the border between Spain and Portugal that existed until the 19th century. |
| Crinkley Bottom | An unsuccessful series of three theme parks built across England, devoted to agrotesque and horrifying BBC children's TV character from the 90s. One of them collapsed within four months of opening due to a massive and costly legal dispute with the local council over funding and liquor permits, while the abandoned site of another was demolished after it was used to host illegal raves. |
| The Crooked House | A pub along the Staffordshire/Black Country border which was at an angle due to ground subsidence as a result of local mining activity, causing bottles rolled along tables to appear to roll uphill. It was destroyed in suspicious circumstances in August 2023. |
 | Crooked Forest | A grove of pine trees that are all bent in the same direction just as they emerge from the ground, before going straight back up again as normal. Nobody knows why this is the case. |
| Cube house | A group of unusually-shaped houses designed to maximize their space. |
 | Dancing House | Also known as "Ginger and Fred" for its resemblance to a pair of dancers. |
| Dartmouth railway station | A train station that has been open since 1864 despite no trains ever stopping there. |
 | Dry Bridge | After the river that this bridge spanned was dried up, it remained, connecting two pieces of the same field that don't have any physical barriers between them. |
| Dumb Woman's Lane | A lane in East Sussex with a humorous name.Spike Milligan used to live there, andPaul McCartney wrote a poem about it. |
| Ebenezer Place, Wick | The world's shortest street. |
| Eichener See | A lake in southern Germany that only occasionally contains water. |
| Eurobridges Spijkenisse | The generic bridges of the euro banknotes brought to reality. |
| Father Pat Noise plaque | O'Connell Bridge bears a tribute to a priest who was as dearly remembered as he was completely fictional. |
| Ferdinand Cheval | A postman, who, for thirty-three years, collected stones while making his rounds and used them to build asurrealPalais Idéal ("Ideal Palace") of astonishing proportions and intricate detail. |
 | Ferdinandea Island | The island that disappeared. And rose again. And sank again. And rose again. And sank again. |
| Flannan Isles Lighthouse | Located on Eilean Mór, this lighthouse to the west of Scotland is the subject of an enduring mystery over the disappearance of its keepers in 1900. |
| Forest swastika | A giganticswastika made oflarch trees that went unnoticed for nearly sixty years. |
 | Free State of Bottleneck | When occupation zones don'tquite meet closely enough, you get a tiny slice of the Rhineland that acts as its own country. |
 | Fugging, Upper Austria | A village in Austria that used to be called "Fucking", but changed its profane-sounding name after years of torment in the form of stolen road signs (some of which had to be enstoned in concrete) to something that still sounds kind of profane. |
 | Galešnjak | An island off the coast of Croatia that is naturally shaped like aheart symbol. |
| Gammalsvenskby | A Swedish village, populated by Swedes, who speakan ancient Swedish dialect, in Ukraine. |
| Gants Hill tube station | A station on theLondon Underground designed to look like a station on theMoscow Metro. |
 | Graun im Vinschgau | This village's most proud landmark is an underwater church tower, the last remnant of the old flooded village right next to it. |
 | Great Tower Neuwerk | The oldest standing building "in" Hamburg is a lighthouse over 100 km away. |
| Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue | A giant artificial palm tree created to remind everyone of the name of the street it's on. |
| Gropecunt Lane | A street name found in English towns and cities during theMiddle Ages. |
 | Grūtas Park | Alternatively known as Stalin World, this park answers the little-asked question of "what should we do with all these Soviet-era statues and monuments from our oppressive past?" Won its creator, mushroom magnate Viliumas Malinauskas, the 2001Ig Nobel Prize. |
| Gutsbezirk Reinhardswald | A "village" that covers 180 square kilometres of uninhabited forest, with only two inhabitants: the owners of a restaurant. |
| Hill of Crosses | This small hill in northern Lithuania is home to over 100,000 crosses and otherCatholic symbols planted in the ground. |
| I Love You Will U Marry Me | A graffiti proposal that has long outlasted the relationship, and is now marked by neon lights. |
 | Icelandic Phallological Museum | A museum inIceland solely devoted to the collection ofpenis specimens and penis-related art. |
| JASON reactor | The only nuclear reactor in a 17th-century building. |
| Kielce Bus Station | A Polish bus station that was deliberately designed to look like a UFO. |
 | Kőbánya cellar system | Budapest has an expansive underground complex of beer and wine cellars that is so large it totals around 200,000 square metres (2,200,000 sq ft) in area. |
| Krzywy Domek | The most interesting house in Poland. |
 | Kursdorf | A village that was abandoned after being gradually encircled after a nearby major airport, resulting in an average sound level of nearly 60 decibels. It earned the title of "the loudest village in Germany". |
 | Lacus Curtius | A pit in the middle of the Roman Forum; even the Romans didn't know why it was there. |
| Lahn | A city so unpopular, not only did it only last 2 years, but its only local elections were won by the party that promised to wipe it off the map. |
 | Lake Karachay | Formerly a lake, it had so much nuclear waste dumped into it that it's now completely dry and possibly themost polluted place on earth. |
 | Leaning Tower of Suurhusen | Beating the world-famousLeaning Tower of Pisa by 1.22 degrees. |
| List of destroyed landmarks in Spain | Over 60 interesting buildings, including larger castles, royal palaces, leaning towers, city gates which were completely or partially demolished and no longer exist, with their respective articles and images. |
| Listenbourg | The European country most Americans can't point out on a map (because it doesn't exist). | |
 | Llandegley International Airport | When is an international airport not an international airport? When it's not an airport at all. |
| Llanfairpwllgwyngyll | Or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, if you want to get technical. |
 | Lupanar | A brothel preserved underneath the ashes ofPompeii, complete with 2000-year-old lewd graffiti. |
| Magic Roundabout | Only in the United Kingdom would you find a largeroundabout with sixmini-roundabouts. (Not to be confused with the "Magic Roundabout"s inColchester,Swindon orHigh Wycombe – or, for that matter,this "Magic Roundabout".) |
 | Manneken Pis Jeanneke Pis | A statue inBrussels depicting a urinating child. And its female counterpart. |
 | Märket | A lighthouse built on this island led to a redefinition of the border betweenSweden andFinland. |
 | Metro-2 | A purported secret metro line in Moscow. |
| Millstreet | A small town inIreland that hosted the1993 Eurovision Song Contest despite only having a population of around 1,500 at that time. |
 | Monte Kaolino | Aski resort without snow. |
 | Mount Athos | An autonomous polity in Greece home to 20 monasteries, notable for being the only political subdivision in the world in which women (as well as female animals) are prohibited from entering for any reason. |
 | Municipalities of Liechtenstein | The blotchy, angular borders between these divisions seem almost arbitrarily strange. TheUAE's are similarly weird. |
| Museum of Broken Relationships | Zagreb is home to this collection of things left behind by break-ups. |
| Muzeon Park of Arts | ARussian park best known for its toppled statues. |
| Neitokainen | This isn't just any pond in Finland, this is a pond in Finland that looks exactly like Finland! |
| Nelson's Pillar | Dublin used to have its own version ofNelson's Column, that ended up serving as a symbol of British imperialism up until the 1960s, when it was blown up by Irish republicans, leading to the creation of several celebratory folk songs. |
| Neutral Moresnet | A tinyEuropean region – approximately 1.4 square miles (3.6 km2) – that existed for a century asneutral territory betweenGermany andBelgium. |
| Newhaven Marine railway station | A railway station that was technically open between 2006 and 2020, despite no passenger trains serving the station during that time, an inability to buy tickets to the station and the station itself being demolished in 2017. |
| New York–Dublin Portal | An art exhibit visually connecting the streets of the two cities that was temporarily shut down after multiple instances of flashing, profanities, and showcasing images of theSeptember 11 attacks. |
| Other World Kingdom | Amicronation andBDSM resort whose ultimate goal is "absolutematriarchy" – for all men to be enslaved by women. |
| Overtoun Bridge | A 50-foot-high bridge that dogs keep jumping off. |
| Paradiskullen | A ski jumping hill with a landing area that goes under one of Sweden's busiest railroads. |
| Pheasant Island | An uninhabited river island which switches sovereignty between France and Spain every six months. |
 | Piața Romană metro station | A station on theBucharest Metro that was cancelled because thewife ofNicolae Ceaușescu was worried that the students nearby would get fat and need exercise. It was built in secret anyway and thus opened in 1988. |
| Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station | An unassuming military station in France became acause célèbre after French Intelligence tried to threaten Wikipedia into deleting its article on it. |
 | Predjama Castle | A castle built partially inside the mouth of a nearby cave. |
| Principality of Sealand | Amicronation located 6 miles (9.7 km) off the coast ofSuffolk,England whose population rarely exceeds ten. |
 | Punkendeich | A former dyke that was once the home of prostitutes, and is now the site of a festival where a tailor walks across the river to check if it's frozen. |
| Reality Checkpoint | A lamppost with its own name. |
 | Röstigraben | The "Coarsely Grated Potato Ditch" in Switzerland, dividing Swiss-German and Swiss-French cuisine. |
 | Saatse Boot | A piece of Russian territory through which a 900-metre (3,000 ft) stretch of Estonian road passes. Although people are allowed to drive on the road without a permit or visa, it is prohibited to travel on foot, or to stop the vehicle for any reason. |
 | Schwerbelastungskörper | A piece ofNazi architecture in Berlin, built with the sole purpose of being heavy. |
| Scottish Court in the Netherlands | A former Dutch NATO base called Camp Zeist was briefly ceded to Scotland to enable the trial of thePan Am Flight 103 bombers. |
| Sedlec Ossuary | A Christian chapel decorated by the bones of approximately 40,000 people. |
| Sexi (Phoenician colony) | An ancient ruins, also known asSex orEx, with several Roman-era suburbs, includingPænis,Socordia andVilla Fatuus Maximus. |
| Shell Grotto, Margate | A grotto with a mosaic of 4.6 million seashells, hidden underneath a backyard. Nobody knows who built it, when, or for what purpose. |
 | Shit Museum | Don't worry, it's actually a good museum. For looking at excrement. |
| Shitterton | Its sign got stolen so often, they bought a 1.5 tonne stone with the town's name engraved in it. (Surprisingly, that rude name really does mean what you'd think.) |
| Smallest House in Great Britain | Only 5.49 square metres (59.1 sq ft) in size, in North Wales. |
| SnowCastle of Kemi | The world's largestsnow fort andice hotel, constantly rebuilt and redesigned each winter. |
 | Sovereign Military Order of Malta | A sovereign state with no land? How is that possible? |
| Spreuerhofstraße | The world's narrowest street. |
| Svalbard Global Seed Vault | If a globalfamine occurs, you better hope you live inSvalbard. |
 | Transnistria | An unrecognized state that broke away fromMoldova during thefall of the Soviet Union due to ethnic tensions and has remained in limbo ever since, retaining Soviet-era aesthetics and even a hammer and sickle on its flag. |
| Uffington White Horse | A giant chalk figure that has to be hit with hammers regularly to maintain it. |
| Unst Bus Shelter | The only of its kind on the island ofUnst,Shetland. It is periodically refurnished and contains a sofa and TV. |
| Uppland Runic Inscription 53 | An 11th century runestone which got accidental fame by being scavenged for the foundation of a 17th century building in the middle ofStockholm. |
| Vajdahunyad Castle | A castle inBudapest that was originally partially built out of cardboard. |
 | Vatican Railway | It consists of a 680-metre (2,230 ft)branch line and was constructed as a direct result of the Vatican's recognition as a country. |
| Vennbahn | A disused railway in Belgium which separates five pieces of Germany from the rest of Germany. |
 | Veyshnoria | A nonexistent border country ofBelarus invented for aUnion State military exercise and adopted by the Internet. It's totally coincidental that the territory of this "enemy state" corresponds to themost Catholic,most anti-Lukashenko, andleast Russian-speaking regions of Belarus, honest. |
| Victor Noir | A young journalist killed by the cousin of the French Emperor, who subsequently became a symbol of resistance prior to the fall ofthe regime... who also got a statue of himself with a massive bulge in his crotch that subsequently became a fertility symbol, with the bulge having become worn and polished due to being fondled by so many members of the public. |
| Vilnius–Lublin Portal | A first-of-its-kind project connecting residents on the streets of the two cities, and the predecessor to amuch more chaotic one. |
| Wallsend Metro station | A station on theTyne and Wear Metro in Northern England which has Latin signage. |
 | Weißwurstäquator | The "White Sausage Equator" in Germany. |
| White's | London's oldest and most famous gentleman's club had several famous people as members, includingKing Charles III,Prince William, former prime ministerDavid Cameron and so on. The club is pretty much top secret, so yes, the EnglishIlluminati definitely aren't lurking and drinking tea there. Also, no girls are allowed. |
| Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate | And the best street name has to go to this street inYork, England. Also said to be the shortest street in the city too! |
| Wooden Spoons Museum | A museum with the largest collection of wooden spoons in the world, ranging from 3,500 to over 6,000. Ladles and 500 erasers can also be found! |
 | World Map at Lake Klejtrup | After finding a rock shaped like the Jutland peninsula, a Danish farmer was inspired to create a map of the world out of the surrounding countryside over the next 25 years. |
| Wrocław Dwarfs | Gotta catch 'em all! |
| Zeitpyramide | To celebrate the 1200th anniversary of a Bavarian town, one artist decided to stack concrete blocks for 1200 years. The next block is scheduled for 2033. |
| Željava Air Base | An abandoned air base, located on the border betweenCroatia andBosnia, that's almost entirely underground. |
| Zone rouge | A series of areas in northeastern France that were so devastated byunexploded ordnance and toxins duringWorld War I that they remain uninhabitable a century later. |
 | Americana, São Paulo | A town in Brazil founded byConfederate farmers and soldiers in the aftermath of theAmerican Civil War. |
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 | Cancún Underwater Museum | A place where works of art are kept several metres beneath sea level. |
 | Cândido Godói | A Brazilian town full of Germans that produces five times as many twins as the national average; these two facts combined to create theories thatJosef Mengele had conducted experiments there. |
 | Cashew of Pirangi | Seventy times larger than an average cashew tree, this tree covers approximately two acres of land by itself. |
 | Cherán | A Mexican town where the residents decided to abolish their own local government and police force in 2011 due to rampant corruption and ties to organized crime. They don't appear to have any regrets. |
 | Ciudad Mitad del Mundo | This park marking the equator in the country named after it was just a bit off when it was built. |
 | Colonia Dignidad | A rural community in Chile that has a story that not even the most insane writer could think of. |
  | Darién Gap | This journey is impossible with the modes you have selected. |
| Devil's Island | A notoriouspenal colony off the coast ofFrench Guiana. |
 | Ernst Thälmann Island | An island off the coast ofCuba that was (sort of) ceded to East Germany and thus (sort of) remains part of East Germany, which doesn't exist anymore (sort of). |
 | Guarapari | A Brazilian town with beaches that are naturally radioactive. |
 | Fordlândia | The man himself was not without hisabject failures in Brazil. |
  | Friendship Park (San Diego–Tijuana) | Where people can shake hands and interact across theMexico–United States border. |
| Hacienda Nápoles | The luxurious estate of the deceased drug lordPablo Escobar, from which an invasive hippopotamus population spread in Colombia. |
 | Heladería Coromoto | Held the world record for most ice cream flavors served, including chili, garlic, crab, macaroni and cheese, egg, beef, and many alcoholic flavors. |
 | Isla Apipé | An Argentine island in theParaná River surrounded by Paraguayan waters. |
 | Island of the Dolls | Located inMexico City, this is an island full of broken and deteriorated dolls of various styles and colors, originally placed by the former owner of the island. |
| John Lennon Park | A park with a statue ofJohn Lennon, in a country that used to ban his music in the 60s as it was aWestern bloc cultural import. Also noteworthy for the fact that his statue doesn't normally wear glasses, as the glasses on the statue keep getting removed or vandalized, although the park now has a security guard whose job is to hang around near the statue and give him a pair of glasses upon request. |
 | Lençóis Maranhenses National Park | Wait, deserts don't seasonally flood. They just don't. Or do they? |
| Mano del Desierto | A massive sculpture of a hand rising from the middle of theAtacama Desert, meant to symbolize human vulnerability and oppression. |
 | Nazca lines | A line museum, exhibited outdoors in southernPeru. |
 | El Ojo | An almost perfectly circular, constantly rotating island in the marshes of Argentina. Its name is Spanish for "The Eye". |
| Parícutin | A volcano that suddenly erupted out of a farmer's cornfield. |
 | Penedo, Itatiaia | A Finnish resort town... in the middle of Brazil. |
 | Pig Beach | A place where you can swim with pigs. |
 | Pizza Pacaya | While many would run from an active volcano, one Guatemalan chef turned one into his own personal kitchen. |
 | Plymouth, Montserrat | A national capital with zero population, as it was abandoned due to a volcanic eruption. |
 | Presidente Hayes Department | What happens whena U.S. President is vastly more famous in a South American country than in the actual United States. |
 | Río Rico, Tamaulipas | A city that was ceded by the United States to Mexico in 1977 due to an earlier diversion of theRio Grande. |
| Santa Cruz del Islote | A tiny artificial island off the coast of Colombia that is said to be the most crowded island on Earth, with its own school, restaurant and other amenities, but without any crime nor police. |
| Spiral Island | An artificial island, now destroyed, built from thousands of empty floating plastic bottles. |
| Vinicunca | Also known as Montaña Arcoíris (Rainbow Mountain), different minerals in the soil of this mountain made it look truly unique. |
 | Y Wladfa | A group of settlements in Argentine Patagonia home to the largest Welsh-speaking population outside of the British Isles, and the location of thePatagonian Welsh dialect. |
 | Yungas Road | An incredibly deadly mountainside road in Bolivia, only 3 meters wide in places and with no guardrails. |
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 | 11 foot 8+8 Bridge | Also known has the "Can Opener", this is a bridge that slices the roof off of trucks that have fallen victim to it. |
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 | 33 Thomas Street | A windowless skyscraper in New York and suspected NSA mass surveillance hub. Not suspicious at all. |
 | A Mountain | Also known as Sentinel Peak, this hill inTucson, Arizona literally has a big letter "A" on it. |
| Agloe, New York | A fictional town inNew York. Originally aphantom settlement, created as acopyright trap for a mapmaker, that ended up developing into an actual landmark. |
 | Alcohol and Drug Abuse Lake | Supposedly named after the treatment center nearby. |
 | Another River | What happens when a group of geologists have become quite bored of discovering and naming rivers. |
 | Aroma of Tacoma | "What an incrediblesmell you've discovered" could have been this Washington city's motto. |
 | Aquarius Reef Base | A real-live underwater laboratory. |
 | Badlands Guardian | A natural topographic feature in Alberta, Canada, which, when viewed from above, looks remarkably like a human wearing aNative American headdress and earbuds. |
 | Beatosu and Goblu | Two non-existent towns that appeared onMichigan's official highway map as a reference to theUniversity of Michigan and its rival,Ohio State University. |
 | Big Blue Bug | Officially named Nibbles Woodaway, this 58-foot long termite overlookingI-95 is a Providence landmark and is claimed to be the world's largest artificial bug. |
 | Bishop Castle | A rocky castle in the Rocky Mountains! This fire-breathing construction project seems to endlessly... drag on. |
 | Boston Citgo sign | This advertisement for an oil company was placed in the perfect spot for it to become a recognizable landmark of the Boston skyline. |
| Borscht Belt | For those who love borscht and find theBible Belt andRust Belt too boring. |
| Bubblegum Alley | 70 feet of alleyway with its walls covered in used chewing gum. |
 | Bubbly Creek | The branch of theChicago River that was so contaminated with blood from theStock Yards that it gained this appetizing moniker. |
 | Bullfrog County, Nevada | A former county in Nevada established around a mountain which was to become a radioactive waste disposal site. As of 2022, it is the only uninhabited county-equivalent to ever be created in the United States. |
| Busta Rhymes Island | Otherwise unnamed island because it had "rope-swinging, blueberries, and ... stuff Busta would enjoy." |
  | Canusa Street | A road that's in bothCanada andUSA. |
| Capitol Hill mystery soda machine | A machine that offered rare drinks with nobody knowing who operated it. It was in operation from the 1990s to 2018, when it disappeared and a note was left saying: "Went for a walk". |
| Casey, Illinois | A town that's seemingly almost entirely populated by oversized models of things. |
| Cat Girl Manor | A manor described as "thePlayboy Mansion of thekitten play community". |
 | Centralia, Pennsylvania | A town that's been on fire since 1962. |
 | Clinton Road (New Jersey) | In addition to having the longest traffic light in the country, the road is also notorious for reported occurrences of paranormal activity. |
| Colma, California | A town where the dead outnumber the living by 1000 to 1. Their motto is, ironically, "It's great to be alive in Colma". |
| Conch Republic | As a protest against the actions by theUnited States federal government,Key West inFloridaseceded from and then declared war on the United States, surrendered one minute later and then applied for $1 billion in foreign aid. |
 | Corporation Trust Center | A small single-story building where over 285,000 companies, or over 15% of all companies in the United States, are legally based. |
 | Crush, Texas | A temporary "city" established as the site of an 1896 publicity stunt, a staged train wreck. The wreck unexpectedly caused two deaths and numerous injuries among spectators. |
 | Crazy Horse Memorial | The Native American answer to Mount Rushmore, started in 1948 and still nowhere near completed. |
| Cuyahoga River | Environmentalism in the United States essentially started because a river inCleveland kept on catching fire. |
 | Dave Thomas Circle | A six-way intersection in Northeast D.C. with aWendy's located in the middle until 2021. The site of numerous traffic fatalities, it's currently being converted into a city park. |
| Delaware Wedge | It's harder than you think to construct the state ofDelaware with a ruler and compass. |
 | Desert of Maine | A 20-acre patch of sand right in the middle of the most forested state in the U.S. |
| Dixie Square Mall | Ashopping mall that stood abandoned for over twice as long as it was in business until it was finally demolished in 2012. It was featured in the 1980 filmThe Blues Brothers and became a popular target forurban explorers. |
| Donald J. Trump State Park | The most tremendous, fantastic, amazing state park you've ever seen. The media wants to say it has poor upkeep, it should be renamed, that it's not even a real state park; but they're all liars and very bad people, believe me. (See also the exhaustivelist of things named after Donald Trump.) |
 | Dorset, Minnesota | A town that, on multiple occasions, has had a child as their "mayor". |
 | Dude Chilling Park | Originally a sign placed in aVancouver park as a prank, now officially recognized public art. |
| eBART | An extension of theBART system that, despite functioning as its own railway line and is powered by unique diesel trains, is officially shown as an extension of the Yellow Line. |
| Exorcist steps | A set of steps in 36th Street most famous for having the character ofFather Karras fall to his death after being possessed. |
 | Fenelon Place Elevator | The shortest and steepest railroad in the world, (supposedly) located in a town of around 60,000 people. |
 | Florence Y'all Water Tower | A Northern Kentucky town's unique "welcome" sign. |
 | Foamhenge | An exact recreation ofStonehenge made entirely out of styrofoam. |
| List of former counties, cities, and towns of Virginia | All the places that are no longer found inVirginia, such as Illinois County, and a few that never were (includingWalton's Mountain). |
| Gann Valley, South Dakota | The county seat ofBuffalo County, South Dakota, despite nearbyFort Thompson having a population more than 120 times larger than Gann Valley. |
 | Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport | Consists entirely of a deeply rutted unmanned strip of soil/gravel and a windsock. |
| Gum Wall | A brick wall in Seattle burdened by chewing gum. Cleaned in 2015, only to be turned into a memorial forParis. |
| Habitat 67 | A futuristic residential complex built in the 1960s that resembles a mass of cuboids haphazardly balanced on top of each other. |
  | Hans Island | A deserted Arctic island fought over by Canada and theKingdom of Denmark for decades. The 2022 settlement created a land border between a North American and a European country. |
| Hawaii 2 | A quaint island inMaine purchased byCards Against Humanity in 2014. |
| Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump | Life lesson: if you see hunterschasing buffalo off a cliff, don't stand at the bottom. |
| Hess triangle | This used to be part of a bigger plot of land but a road destroyed it but the planners couldn't plan correctly so it left this piece of land. |
| Holy Land Experience | A defunct Christian theme park built inOrlando, Florida where you could meet Jesus Christ instead ofMickey. It has also been accused of trying to convert Jewish visitors. Also a greatLoo Loo Land alternative. |
 | Horace Burgess's Treehouse | A tree house built by a minister who claimed to have received a vision from God. God apparently didn't like it, since it burnt down. |
 | Indianapolis Catacombs | Despite the name, never used as a burial place. |
| Interstate 180 (Wyoming) | AnInterstate Highway that isn't really a freeway at all. |
| Interstate 19 | The only U.S. highway marked inSI units, a relic of a historical push formetrication. |
| Iowa 80 | The world's largesttruck stop; it even comes with a movie theater, a dentist, and a chiropractor. |
| Island of California | The third-largest US state was formerly an island – at least on paper. |
| Jackass Flats | The aptly named test site for the world's first and onlynuclear-powered rocket engines. |
| Jerimoth Hill | The highest natural point inRhode Island. For years, one of the toughest highpoints in the U.S. to scale, not because of its 812-foot (247 m) height, but because of an angry old man who lived nearby. |
 | Jimmy Carter Peanut Statue | A very strange monument tothe 39th president, who reportedly hated it during his lifetime. |
 | John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant | A sewage plant inDanbury, Connecticut named after John Oliver after he satirically insulted the city onLast Week Tonight. |
| Joker Stairs | We live in a society where a movie can make a star out of a flight of stairs. |
| Just Room Enough Island | This island is about one-thirteenth of an acre in size but that didn't stop the aptly named Sizeland family from building a house on it. |
| Kentucky Bend | A part ofKentucky that is cut off from the rest of the state byMissouri,Tennessee, and theMississippi River. |
 | KRDK-TV mast | Would you expect theseventh-tallest structure in the world to be a TV station transmitter? Standing at 2,060 ft (627.8 m), alas it is. |
 | Lake Peigneur | A 10-foot-deep swimming lake at one time, it was turned into the deepest lake in Louisiana thanks to a salt mining accident. |
 | Landsat Island | A lonesome island with a frankly humorous tale. |
| List of canceled Las Vegas casinos | What happened on the drawing board stayed on the drawing board. |
 | List of gaps in Interstate Highways | Traffic-lighted intersections, drawbridges, and other oddities in theInterstate Highway System which violatethe standards. |
| Lizzie Borden House | The location of one of the most famous ax murders in history, which was turned into a B&B in 1996. According to the building's former owner, the room where Abby Borden was murdered is its "most requested room." |
| London Bridge | An over century year old authentic English bridge...that now resides in the middle of the desert. |
 | M-185 (Michigan highway) | The only state highway in the country that bans motor vehicles. It's also the only state highway to not have an accident until 2005. |
| Mary Ellis grave | A grave that found itself in the middle of a movie theater parking lot. |
| Memphis Pyramid | The tenth-largest pyramid in the world, located in Memphis, Tennessee, and home to aBass Pro Shops megastore. |
| Mexia Supermarket | Local supermarket becomes a phsyical manifestation of rot and decay after the owners forgot to take out all the food before closing. |
| Michigan left | Directions are more complicated in Michigan. |
| Mickey pylon | A powerline pylon with a shape reminiscent of a certain fictional rodent. |
| Mojave phone booth | A public phone booth that stood for several decades in the middle of a desert, miles away from any roads or other structures. |
 | Mountain Home Air Force Base | A Singaporean air force base in Idaho. |
 | Mollie's Nipple | The name of multiple places in Utah... including at least onebutte. |
 | Monowi | A village in Nebraska with a population of one. Hi, Elsie! |
 | Mr. Trash Wheel | A trash interceptor with giant googly eyes that patrols theBaltimore Inner Harbor, consuming trash. Has its own Instagram page. |
| Murder Kroger | A supermarket with a dark story. |
| Nataqua Territory | A failed U.S. territory that was, quite literally, beside itself. |
 | National Mustard Museum | Collecting and chronicling the common condiment. |
| National Raisin Reserve | Created after World War II to control raisin prices. Run by the Raisin Administrative Committee, of course. |
 | Ned Flanders Crossing | A bridge overInterstate 405 inPortland, Oregon, which was originally calledFlanders Crossing, but was renamed after a fictional character himself named after the road. |
 | Nettilling Lake | Located onBaffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. It'sthe largest lake on an island and also contains the largest lake on an island on a lake on an island, which in turn contains the world's largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island. |
| New York–Dublin Portal | An art exhibit visually connecting the streets of the two cities that was temporarily shut down after multiple instances of flashing, profanities, and showcasing images of theSeptember 11 attacks. |
| Nitt Witt Ridge | A house inCalifornia, built out of beer cans, abalone shells, car parts, and other garbage previously tossed out by local residents, is now a historic landmark. |
| Northeast Greenland National Park | The world's largest national park consists of over a quarter of Greenland's total land area, is larger than 166 sovereign states, and has no permanent human population. |
| Northwest Angle | This little spoke jutting out of northern Minnesota was created as the result of a surveying error, and its land is completely cut off from the rest of the U.S. by theLake of the Woods. |
| Nutty Narrows Bridge | A grandsuspension bridge solely used by squirrels trying not to get squashed by the vehicles below. |
 | Old Man of the Mountain | A rock formation in northern New Hampshire resembling the side profile of a person. Collapsed in 2003, but is immortalized on the state's license plates, highway signs and state quarter. |
| Park No. 474 | To meet funding requirements, the Illinois Institute of Technology deeded a 6-by-9-foot granite slab to the city of Chicago, creating the smallest park in Illinois, which has no natural features. |
| Perry County | Not so unusual, until you look at the city names within the county:Hazard,Blue Diamond,Jeff,Doorway,Upper Squabble,Gays Creek,Happy (andHappy Valley),Typo,Mud Lick,Hurricane, andmuch, much, MUCH, much more!!! |
 | Peter Camani | A (now retired) Canadian art teacher who built a massive complex of sculptures of screaming faces on his property in his spare time, and converted his house into a castle with a turret of a screaming face. |
| Point Roberts, Washington | When defining international boundaries, sometimes a straight line isn't the best solution. |
 | Polar Bear Holding Facility | A prison forpolar bears. |
| Poozeum | A museum dedicated tocoprolites. |
| Prada Marfa, Texas | For your luxury shopping bug, a Prada store in the desert. |
| — | Pyramid mausoleums in North America | Arizona GovernorGeorge Hunt will hereafter be addressed as "Pharaoh George I". |
| Rabbit Hash, Kentucky | A town whose mayors, since 1998, have all been dogs. |
| Raising of Chicago | During the 1850s, the city was raised on jacks, building by building. |
| Rainbow Farm | The only place wheregay married couples could guard their marijuana plants with guns. Notably visited byMerle Haggard andTommy Chong. |
| Republic of Indian Stream | An area of land in northernNew Hampshire that was an independent country from 1832 to 1835. |
| Republic of Molossia | A 34-person micronation inNevada which takes the meaning of the phrase "a man's home is his castle" to new extremes. |
| Rock N Roll McDonald's | A rock 'n roll-themedMcDonald's restaurant located in Chicago, famous for being the subject of a song by outsider musicianWesley Willis. |
| Rocky Steps | Thanks to their appearance ina certain movie, the steps leading up to the main entrance of thePhiladelphia Museum of Art is as popular of a tourist attraction as the museum itself. |
| Rough and Ready, California | This mining town seceded from the Union in 1850, but came back three months later because they realised they couldn't celebrate Independence Day. |
| Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Quebec | A very serious town inQuebec'sBas-Saint-Laurent region that happens to have the most exclamation marks of any known place name. |
| Sam Kee Building | Known as the world's narrowest commercial building. |
| Santa Claus, Arizona | InMohave County, visit an abandoned tourist trap deep in the desert where Santa Claus, of all people, allegedly resides! |
| Slab City, California | A massive off-the-grid trailer park on a former military base in theSonoran Desert, that became a large-scale alternative community of misfits and wanderers that has persisted for decades, complete with various displays of colourful experimental sculptures made from whatever the residents can get their hands on. |
| S.N.P.J., Pennsylvania | A municipality consisting solely of aSlovenian fraternity's recreation center, established (in part) to get aroundliquor laws. |
| State of Franklin | A proposed state inEastern Tennessee that tried its hand at independence and fell into debt toSpain. |
| State of Scott | Scott County in northernTennessee seceded and formed its own state in opposition to Tennessee joining theConfederacy. It remained this way for over a century until it rejoined Tennessee in 1986. |
| Statue of Lenin (Seattle) | How a statue ofLenin made its way fromCzechoslovakia toSeattle's Fremont neighborhood. |
 | Legend of Stull Cemetary | A small town's cemetery became infamous after reports that theDevil shows up there on Halloween and the spring equinox, and it guards theseven gates to Hell. Multiple people have been arrested trying to find out if this is true. |
| Texas State Highway 165 | The only state highway in the country specifically designated to servea cemetery...and nothing more. It's also the only state highway in the country to be partially closed every night. |
 | The Greenbrier | A luxury resort that, for three decades, housed an emergency bunker for Congress to work from if a nuclear war broke out. And no, the bunker isn't available to rent. |
 | This Street, That Street, and The Other Street | Can cause a lot of trouble when tellingUber drivers what street you live at. |
| Toadsuck, Texas | A fake town made up bya presidential candidate after having too much to drink one night. |
| Track 61 (New York City) | A secret train platform located below theWaldorf Astoria New York designed for use by U.S. Presidents when they would visit the hotel. |
 | Truth or Consequences, New Mexico | A New Mexico town that chose to rename itself after theTruth or Consequences game show in 1950, then never bothered changing back. |
| U Thant Island | An island in theEast River with a surprisingly in-depth history for only being 2,000 square feet (190 m2) in area. |
| U.S. Route 19 Truck (Pittsburgh) | A road in Pittsburgh that features a number ofwrong way concurrencies, including one with itself. |
| Vulcan Bridge | A bridge in rural West Virginia whose repairs were almost funded by theSoviet Union after a local mayor, tired of the West Virginia state government ignoring his requests for funding, reached out across the Iron Curtain. |
| Weather Station Kurt | That time whenthe Nazis landed in North America. |
| Whittier, Alaska | A city in Alaska where (almost) all of its residents live in one building:Begich Towers. |
| Winchester Mystery House | A house believed to be haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed byWinchester rifles. |
| World's littlest skyscraper | The result of afraudulent investment scheme, it's a four-story brick building constructed in 1920 in downtownWichita Falls,Texas that has only one room on each of its four floors. |
| Zilwaukee, Michigan | Just TRY to convincespellcheck you're not crazy. |
| Zone of Death | The part ofYellowstone National Park in Idaho, where any crime can technically be committed without punishment – but don't tempt fate! |
 | American Samoa | Despite having a functional legislature (theFono) and a population of 46,366, American Samoa is considered an 'unincorporated unorganized' territory. It is also the only U.S. territory where people are not automatically born citizens, despite much of the population being involved in the military. |
|---|---|---|
| Baldwin Street | A short suburban road inDunedin, New Zealand, reputedly the world's steepest street. |
 | Ball's Pyramid | A nearly 600-metre-tall (2,000 ft) stone stack in the middle of the ocean. Also home toone of the rarest insects on Earth. |
 | Banjawarn Station | Dida Japanese apocalypse cult test a nuke in the middle of rural Australia? |
| Bayswater Subway | Bridge inPerth that has been hit by trucks 50 times between 2014 and 2020. |
| Burning Mountain | A straightforwardly named mountain that has been on fire for over 6000 years. |
| Cardrona Bra Fence | An eccentric tourist attraction in New Zealand. |
 | Coober Pedy | A mining town where most of the residents live underground. You can also check out their opal supply and/or play glow-in-the-dark golf at night! |
 | Concrete bus shelters in Canberra | Thesebrutalist cylindrical bus shelters are an icon of Australia's capital city. |
| Egmont National Park | This national park's boundaries created a circular forest. |
| Horizontal Falls | This pair of Australian "waterfalls" appear to be falling straight across the land. |
| Hundertwasser Toilets | Why the town ofKawakawa is the world's best place for a rest stop. |
 | Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai | An island that was created in 2015 after a volcano erupted between two islands and connected them until another volcanic explosion in 2022 split them up again. |
 | Jellyfish Lake | A lake where jellyfish have evolved without stingers due to a lack of predators. |
| Jervis Bay Territory | Briefly ceded to theAustralian Capital Territory to give it access to the sea despite not bordering it at all. |
 | Kalawao County, Hawaii | The second-least populous county in the United States (afterLoving County, Texas), with a population of 82 as of the 2020 census. Established as a leper colony in 1866, it occupies a peninsula onMolokai and is not connected by road to the rest of the island. |
 | Kingman Reef | It's designated as its own US overseas territory despite having an area of only 0.03 square kilometres (0.012 sq mi) and being almost entirely underwater during low tide. |
 | Montague Street Bridge | A bridge inMelbourne that has had so many trucks crash into and get stuck under it, the government used millions of dollars to install prevention measures (it did nothing). |
| Mount Wycheproof | Considered a mountain when only 43 metres (141 ft) above surrounding terrain and 143 metres (469 ft) above sea level. There are parts of Sydney which have a higher elevation and are not considered a mountain. |
| Murray Valley Highway | A 671-kilometre (417 mi) road that has a road route number of B400 for 668 kilometres (415 mi) in the Victorian section and unmarked for 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in the New South Wales section making the Victorian road network not connected to the New South Wales Network in that area. |
| Nelson–Blenheim notional railway | A road that was officially considered to be a railway by the New Zealand Government for 22 years. |
| New Zealand State Highway 78 | A road inTimaru, New Zealand, that is designated a highway despite being only 900 metres (3,000 ft) long. |
| Ngerulmud | The only national capital with a permanent population of 0, as it entirely consists of government offices. |
| Ninety Mile Beach | A 55-mile beach. |
| Octopolis and Octlantis | A pair of settlements built by octopuses, discovered on the seabed off the coast of the aforementionedJervis Bay. |
| Palmyra Atoll | The United States' only 'incorporated unorganized' territory, despite there being no government and virtually no permanent residents for the Constitution to apply to... |
 | Pitcairn Islands | ABritish Overseas Territory where the entire population isSeventh-day Adventist and descended from the mutineers from theHMS Bounty. The entire population moved toNorfolk Island for three years in the 1850s and is currently at risk of going extinct due to the high number of emigrants. Also the site of a scandal where 13 men, almost a third of the islands' population, were convicted in a sex abuse scandal, giving the islands the highest rate of sex offenders in the world. |
| Pink Lake | A lake that is naturally pink, but suddenly turned blue in 2010. |
|  Princes Freeway (east) | A freeway with houses, traffic lights, and a 60-kilometre-per-hour (37 mph) limit in some areas. What are VicRoads thinking? |
| Carstensz Pyramid | The tallest mountain inAustralasia is administrated by the Republic of Indonesia. |
 | Sandy Island | An island which was shown on Google Maps satellite view until 2012 despite not existing. |
| That Wānaka Tree | A tree named after a hashtag on Instagram. |
| Taumata | With a full name consisting of 85 characters, this hill may bethe longest place name in the world. |
| Te Urewera | A forested area in New Zealand that is also a legal person (see below). |
 | Tuanaki | The Cook Islands that never were. |
| Whanganui River | A river in New Zealand that is legally a person. |
| Wedding Cake Rock | A rock that looks exactly like a wedding cake. |
| Whangamōmona | A township in New Zealand that also happens to be a self-declared republic, whose past presidents include a goat and a poodle. |
| Bal des Ardents | A masquerade ball in which the king and some noble dancers dress in wild man costumes and accidentally get set on fire by the king's drunk brother. |
| Burned house horizon | The horizon which consumed cultures in theBalkans and around theBlack Sea. |
| Cadaver Synod | A deceased Pope was exhumed and put on trial! |
| Cagots | A group that were a persecuted minority in France and Spain into the 20th century, and nobody really knows why. |
| Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir | The progenitor of the one-star Yelp review is a gripe about poor-quality copper. |
| Criterion of embarrassment | You know it's true because it's too embarrassing for anyone to have made it up. |
| Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei | A disputed first female monarch ofChinese history beforeWu Zetian, whom theEmpress Dowager Hu declared was a boy and was emperor for a day before being replaced byanother infant. |
| Elagabalus | The number one Syrian teenagesun cultist polygamist possibly-transgender Roman emperor! |
| Erfurt latrine disaster | It's incredible how quickly someone's life can go to shit.Literally. |
| Hegelochus | History will remember him for mispronouncingone word in an Ancient Greek play. |
| Henry Symeonis | TheUniversity of Oxford held a grudge against him so long they forgot why. |
| House of Colleoni | A former Italian noble family whose arms included three pairs of testicles. |
| John the Posthumous | King of France from the minute he was born to the minute he died (total: 5 days). |
| Kottabos | The world's first drinking game. Care to play? All you need is a bronze "lamp stand" with a tiny statuette on top and some wine. |
| Máel Brigte of Moray | A Pictish nobleman who somehow managed to bite a man to death despite being long-dead himself. |
| Nika riots | Kind of likefootball hooliganism, except forchariot racing, and also if it resulted in tens of thousands dead, half ofConstantinople being burnt to the ground and the Emperor nearly being lynched. |
| Onfim | A 7 year-old medieval Russian boy whose homework tablets, complete with doodles of himself as a "wild beast", were preserved for 700 years before being excavated and becoming aprimary source for life in theNovgorod Republic. |
| Phantom time conspiracy theory | A theory byHeribert Illig that the Early Middle Ages (614–911) never occurred. Therefore, it is now 1728 rather than 2025. |
| Pope Benedict IX | He became pope at twenty, and later sold the papacy. He was pope three times. |
| Pope Celestine V | The pope who never wanted to be the pope and did everything in his power to stop it. |
| Pope Donus II | Turns out that maintaining a two millennium old list of popes leads to some confusion and the creation of a new, official, pope. |
| Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories | Native Americans are among theTen Lost Tribes? TheZuni are related to Japanese peasants? This and more wild theories are found here. |
| Publius Afranius Potitus | If you're going to say you'd trade your life for your sick emperor's, make sure he doesn't get better. |
| Roland The Farter | If only we were all a jump, whistle & fart away from prosperity! |
| Sacred Band of Thebes | An elite fighting force consisting of a hand-picked groups of 150 pairs of male lovers. |
| Sanitation of the Indus Valley Civilisation | The home of the first flush toilet, as it turns out, is Punjab. |
| Sino-Roman relations | These empires inched progressively closer to each other in the course of the Roman expansion into theancient Near East and of the simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions intoCentral Asia. Mutual awareness remained low, and firm knowledge about each other was limited. |
| Wise Men of Gotham | So-named after they acted like idiots sothe king would go away. |
| Affair of the Sausages | One of the major events of the earlyProtestant Reformation in Switzerland was a religious dispute on whether sausages could be eaten duringLent. |
| Architecture terrible | An architectural style advocated by French architectJacques-François Blondel. |
| Charles II of Spain | The last Habsburg King of Spain, who was so severely inbred that he could barely rule his nation due to his constant health problems. Upon his death, his autopsy revealed internal organs so withered and atrophied that witchcraft was actually suspected. |
| Curonian colonisation | A Latvian duchy's little-known colonial empire, consisting of bits of land along theGambia River and the island ofTobago. |
| Dancing plague of 1518 | In 1518, around 400 people took to dancing for days without rest, and, over the period of about one month, some of those affected died of heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion. |
| Darien scheme | An attempt to colonize the inhospitableDarién Gap, backed by theKingdom of Scotland. The failure of the colony ruined the Scottish economy, and may have led to theUnion of England and Scotland. |
| Defenestrations of Prague | When was the last time throwing someone out of a window started a war? |
| Diet of Worms | Animperial diet that just happened to be held at the city ofWorms. Not thatMartin Luther was eating so many worms that the Emperor put him on trial. Eugh. |
| Timothy Dexter | Genius businessman or loony? SeeA Pickle for the Knowing Ones. |
| False Dmitry | A weird phenomenon in Russian history for all the fake kings that they once had. One, in reality, did become a ruler. |
| Glass delusion | Believing oneself to be made of glass was quite in vogue among Renaissance-era European nobility. |
| Gilles de Rais | Friend ofJoan of Arc, and convicted serial killer. |
| Hospitaller colonization of the Americas | That timeMalta under theKnights Hospitaller bought a few islands in the Caribbean, and set up some colonies. |
| Loveday | Can holding hands and going to church end a civil war? Turns out: no. |
| Makassan contact with Australia | Over a century before Europeans made contact with Australia,Makassarese people from Sulawesiseeking sea cucumbers traded with theAboriginal Australians of Kimberley and Arnhem land, bringing Islamic and Indonesian influence to the local culture, art, language, and lifestyle. |
| May 1605 papal conclave | When a papal election got so heated that it sparked a brawl between cardinals. |
| The Miracle of 1511 | When the people ofBrussels protested against their rulers by building satirical and pornographicsnowmen. |
| Mutiny on theBounty | The true story starting witha stern captain and a lustful crew on a Royal Navy ship and ending with the British-Polynesian Seventh-day Adventist culture of the Pitcairn Islands. Plenty of drama in-between. Nearly 20 years later, said captain would find himself on the receiving end of another mutiny in the form of theRum Rebellion. |
| Nottingham cheese riot | A riot that broke out in Nottingham in 1766 over Lincolnshire merchants buying Nottingham cheese with the intent of selling it in Lincolnshire. |
| Order of the Pug | A fraternal order that existed for Roman Catholics inBavaria in the 18th century. |
| George Psalmanazar | A Frenchman who was so successful in convincing 18th-century Britain he was a Taiwanese man, that he wrote an elaborate and blatantly fictitious history of the island. |
| Crown Prince Sado | To prevent him from becoming the new monarch ofJoseon Korea, his father, the king, locked him in a rice chest for eight days, killing him through dehydration. |
| Yasuke | An African man who ended up becoming a retainer forOda Nobunaga, one of Japan's most important feudal lords, in 1581. |
| Andrew Johnson's drunk vice-presidential inaugural address | What happens when you start your important new job fortified by threefull glasses of straight whiskey, filled to the brim, after spending the week leading up to it in (more or less) a drunken stupor. |
| Kinjirō Ashiwara | Emperor of Japan, but only in his own mind. See also Emperor Norton below. |
| John Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland | A reclusive English nobleman who built a vast maze under his home. |
| The boy Jones | A Buckingham Palace intruder who went one better than later counterpartMichael Fagan, as he kept coming back over a period of three years. |
| Confederados | A small group of white Brazilians with roots in the southern United States. |
| Drapetomania | "Those slaves want to be free? They must be mentally ill!" |
| Dublin whiskey fire | In 1875, a whiskey brewery warehouse inDublin caught fire leading to the deaths of 13 people—not from the fire, but from alcohol poisoning as they drank free, undiluted whiskey from the streets. |
| Emperor Norton | To give him his full title; Norton I, Emperor of the United States, Protector of Mexico. Somewhat recognized by the population of California. |
| Johann Georg August Galletti | The early-19th-century master of the bizarre turn of phrase. |
| Great Moon Hoax | An infamous article bythe Sun that claimed that animals such asunicorns and bat-winged humans were found living on themoon. |
| Great Stink | ALondon summer so smelly it prompted government action. |
| Charles J. Guiteau | The strangest man to everassassinate aUS President. Highlight: theself-penned poem from the point of view of a child that he wrote for his execution. |
| Jerome of Sandy Cove | A man, unable to speak any language known to locals, was discovered on the beaches ofNova Scotia in 1861 with his legs cut off. He lived for fifty more years, but remains unidentified to this day. |
| Kentucky meat shower | Not as sexy as you'd imagine it to be. |
| Knights of the Golden Circle | A secret society of American slave masters that planned to invade lands in Latin America to spread their pro-slavery views. |
| London Beer Flood | Nine people drowned by a flood of over 300,000 gallons of beer. |
| Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême | King of France for 20 minutes. |
| Gregor MacGregor | That's his real name. Possibly the only honest thing about him. |
| New England vampire panic | An outbreak of tuberculosis in the late 1800s led some superstitious New Englanders to burn the internal organs of their dead relatives, in some cases feeding them to sick family members, to try to prevent the disease from spreading. |
| Nongqawuse | During (and likely because of) colonization, aXhosa teenager became an apocalyptic prophetess, ordering the Xhosa to destroy their own crops and livestock—which they did. |
| Heinrich Schliemann | A pioneer of archaeology, but not for good reasons. |
| William Walker | Trying to create new slave-holding colonies, he became president of Nicaragua for a year and inspired Latin America to come together for the first time (to oust him). |
| Watermelon Riot | A deadly riot that unfolded over a stolen slice of watermelon. |
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| Affair of the Dancing Lamas | A diplomatic incident where the dancing of Tibetan monks meant to promote a documentary lead to the Tibetan government banning future British expeditions to Tibet for nearly a decade. Tibet becoming more isolationist and scaling back its military in light of this incident may have also made it more vulnerable toChinese takeover. |
| Are There Men on the Moon? | An essay written byWinston Churchill in 1942 about the possibility of alien life. Apparently he didn't have anything more important to think about at the time. |
| Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany | Somehow, Nazi Germany was a pioneer of policies of this kind. |
| Eduard Bloch | The Jewish doctor that treated Hitler's mother and was the only Jew that was protected by the dictator himself when Nazi Germany invaded Austria. |
| Chewing gum sales ban in Singapore | The curious case of the banning of gumballs in an Asian nation. |
| Christmas truce | An unofficial armistice inWW1 where nations celebrated Christmas and played football (soccer). |
| COINTELPRO | The FBI's name for their undercover operation of investigation, and at times disruption, of influential groups and people in the inland United States during the Cold War. Some of the most famous individuals observed in this operation include:Martin Luther King Jr.,Muhammad Ali,John Lennon,Charles Chaplin andMalcolm X. |
| Crocker Land Expedition | An expedition to a non-existent island created to swindlea businessman. |
| Czechoslovak Togo | A landlocked Eastern European country proposed getting a colony in Africa, to be administered byits troops in Siberia. |
| Đorđe Martinović incident | A man goes to the emergency room with a bottle up his anus, and kicks off thecollapse of Yugoslavia... |
| East Germany balloon escape | One of the most famous cases of East Germans escaping to the West. |
| Elizabeth, Lady Hope | A woman who became famous for creating a hoax whereCharles Darwin renounced his theories of evolution at his final moments. |
| Empire of Vietnam | An empire that only lasted for 5 months. |
| Extraterritoriality of Princess Margriet's birth | One building in Canada became part of the Netherlands for a few days to allow for the exiled Crown Princess to give birth there. |
| Dorothy Gibson | An actress famous for surviving theTitanic sinking, and also for living a rather turbulent life afterwards. |
| Great Michigan Pizza Funeral | Ashes to ashes, crust to crust. |
| Great Molasses Flood | A storage tank burst and flooded the streets ofBoston with a 25-foot (7.6 m) high wave of molasses. |
| Mango cult | It takesquite the cult of personality to have a fruit you gave as a gift be venerated. |
| Julia Butterfly Hill | "Damn, bitch, you live likeTHIS?" Now amusical directed byIdina Menzel. |
| Masabumi Hosono | The only Japanese survivor of theTitanic sinking, and someone who wasn't welcomed in his home country after the disaster. |
| Violet Jessop | An Argentinian nurse known for surviving three separate maritime disasters, including the sinkings of both theTitanic and theBritannic. |
| Charles Joughin | AnotherTitanic survivor, famous for being so drunk that the freezing waters wouldn't kill him. |
| Killing baby Hitler | How could you do it? Or, how could younot do it? |
| Kilroy was here | A meme fromWorld War II. |
| Bobby Leach | Went over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survived, attempted to swim the rapids under it and survived... then died after slipping on an orange peel. |
| Li Guangchang | A Chinese man who founded a cult and declared himself Emperor of China in the 1980s. |
| Madagascar Plan | An abandoned Nazi plan to transport all of the Jewish population of Europe on to one little island. |
| Francisco Macías Nguema | What happens when a mentally unstable, self-proclaimed "Hitlerian-Marxist" becomes the leader of a nation?Mary Hopkin's music getting played during a mass execution becomes one of the less strange events during a presidency. |
| MKUltra | TheCIA's dabblings in brainwashing,sensory deprivation andLSD experiments. |
| Moscow gold | At the start of theSpanish Civil War, more than 70% of the Bank of Spain's gold reserves were transported to the Soviet Union by the Republican government. The controversy and mystery of where it went continues to echo through Spain. |
| Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás | *takes a deep breath* He’s a baron, paleontologist, geologist, aristocrat, adventurer, scholar,albanologist, and one-time spy. Among other things, he was the first to postulate that certain dinosaurs got smaller on islands, was almost the king of Albania, and nameda fossil turtle after his male lover’s arse. |
| North Hollywood shootout | In 1997, two heavily armed men were involved in a bank robbery, which turned into a 44-minute shootout with police officers. 20 people were injured as a result, and only the criminals died. |
| Octobering | In a country where Christianity has been banned as "counter-revolutionary", but still want to have a christening? No problem! |
| Kenzō Okuzaki | A WW2Japanese army veteran whose attempts to hold the Emperor responsible for the hardships of the war involved obscenity, murder andpachinko balls. |
| Operation Paperclip | Whereby Nazi scientists (including "father of rocket science"Wernher von Braun) were granted amnesty by the US in exchange for their secrets. |
| Emilio Palma | An Argentine national who was the first person to be born in Antarctica. |
| Assassination of Olof Palme | The murder of a Swedish prime minister that became one of the country's most durable mysteries. |
| Punjabi Mexican Americans | Two groups discriminated against in 1910s California intermarried, creating a unique, dynamic community and a delectable new fusion cuisine. |
| Puyi | He became the last Emperor of China at the age of two and died as an ordinary citizen, ending 2,133 years of dynastic rule in China. In his twilight years, he also didcommunity theater. |
| Radcliffe Line | The real reason for themany conflicts between India and Pakistan? They gaveone man who'd never been there five weeks to draw a border. |
| Rangoon bombing | A relatively unknown case of North Korean violence aimed at South Korean representatives in Burma. |
| Reggio revolt | A coalition of Christian democrats, fascists and anarchists started an armed revolt because the Italian government chose the wrong city as the regional capital. Oh andFrancesco Franco led it too. |
| Mathias Rust | TheWest German who landed on a bridge in Moscow in 1987. |
| Satanic Verses controversy | One book caused the death of thousands and put Middle Eastern and Islamic relations with the West in the sorry state they are today. Also don’t forget about whenthe author of the book got stabbed. |
| Self-propelled barge T-36 | A Soviet barge that floated all the way across the Pacific, with no casualties. |
| Khalid Sheldrake | The story of an English pickle merchant who became a devout Muslim and was declared king by Uyghur rebels during the ChineseWarlord Era. |
| Shindo Renmei | Japanese Brazilians who refused to believe Japan had surrendered and continued the cause... by killing other Japanese Brazilians. |
| Stanley Lord | The captain of a ship that could've been the savior of the victims of theTitanic disaster. |
| Albert Stevens | The most radioactive human ever. |
| Tanganyika laughter epidemic | Not so funny. |
| Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln | A Hungarian-Jewish man who was, at various times, a UK Member of Parliament, German World War I spy, Nazi collaborator and self-proclaimedDalai Lama. |
| Tuskegee Syphilis Study | One of the darkest and most bizarre biological experiments in US history, one which spanned decades. |
| Roman von Ungern-Sternberg | During theRussian Civil War, an ultra-reactionaryBaltic German general converted to Buddhism and tried to revive theMongol Empire. |
| United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (Western New Guinea) | The largest ever temporaryUnited Nations territory, and the only one to be transferred tothe country thatwas invading it to cause the U.N. takeover in the first place. |
| United States involvement in regime change | Now, this is perhaps the most complicated and long article in this list. However, you'll find many surprises once you read it. See alsoOperation Condor. |
| John Zegrus | Turned up in Japan in 1959, claiming to be a war hero and a military recruiter for theUnited Arab Republic (and possibly also claimed to be from Africa). His true identity and motives are still a mystery. |
| Cottage cheese boycott | A protest against rising staple food prices in Israel. |
| Dean scream | A presidential bid that was ended by a scream. |
| Rudi Dekkers | How theSeptember 11 attacks changed everything for the flying instructor of three of the hijackers. |
| Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist | Thieves stole 3,000 tons of it! Is it really that valuable? |
| Uday Hussein | Saddam Hussein's oldest son and a real-lifeFar Cry orJames Bond villain. Among other things, he was a rapist and murderer, had a doppelganger namedLatif Yahia, (whom Uday would send to torture) and also had the habit of kidnapping women at wedding celebrations. |
| Kvissel murder | An incident when a 16 year old girl whose boyfriend is actually a 29 year-old IraqiIslamist extremist. The couple was not known for theirage gap, but rather forthe killing of said 16 year old girl's mother. |
| Laser Kiwi flag | Thereal New Zealand flag in all our hearts. |
| Norwegian butter crisis | A massive inflation of butter prices caused illegal smuggling and an "emergency appeal" from a Danish television show. |
| John P. O'Neill | As special agent in the FBI, he'd investigated Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden but quit due to internal politics. He then took up a job at the World Trade Centerin 2001. (Quote from his friend on hearing he'd taken that job: "At least they're not going tobomb it again". His reply: "They'll probably try to finish the job.") |
| Pepsi fruit juice flood | APepsiCo warehouse collapse flooded the streets ofRussia with an assortment ofjuices. |
| Ruhnama | TheTurkmen dictator's book that, during his lifetime, became required reading at universities and even part of the driving test. |
| Stellar Wind | Part ofthe new post-9/11 surveillance program, this project's cases were often referred to as "pizza cases" because what was suspected to be terrorist activity often turned out to be a takeout order. |
| −0 | Zero has a negative flavor in the worlds ofcomputing,experimental science andstatistical mechanics. |
| 0.999... | An infinitely long way to write 1. |
| 2 + 2 = 5 | ...or perhaps it equals1984... |
| 616 | Therealnumber of the beast? |
| 65537-gon | It can beconstructed with a compass and straight edge... but so can a circle, and it's not like you'd notice the 15 parts per billion of difference. |
| A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates | A pioneering book that does exactly what it says on the cover. Somehow, not the onlyrandom number book either. |
| Abstract nonsense | An affectionate term for parts of mathematical proof. |
| All horses are the same color | Flawedmathematical induction proof that all horses are the same color. |
| Almost everywhere | Does not refer to advertising or corrupt corporate practices, but is instead a term inmeasure theory. |
| Almost integer | By a strange coincidence, - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. |
| Almost periodic function | Well, at least they tried. |
| Banach–Tarski paradox | Tutorial to make two spheres from one. |
| Belphegor's prime | 1 followed by 13 zeros followed by 666 followed by 13 zeros followed by 1. |
| Bertrand's postulate | Despite now being a theorem, still conventionally called a postulate. |
| Calculator spelling | 5318008! |
| The Complexity of Songs | A treatise on thecomputational complexity ofsongs by venerable computer scientistDonald Knuth. |
| Cox–Zucker machine | This machine does what?! |
| Erdős–Bacon number | A combination of thedegrees of separation from actorKevin Bacon and mathematicianPaul Erdős. |
| Extravagant number | Don't take it shopping. Not very friendly with thefrugal number either. |
| Gabriel's horn | A geometric figure with an infinitesurface area but finitevolume. Soeven if the horn was filled with paint, you could never paint its surface. |
| Graham's number | A number so large that theobservable universe is not big enough to write it in full indecimal notation or evenscientific notation. |
| Hairy ball theorem | Mathematicians are terrible at naming things. |
| Happy number | Not just a cheery song on the radio. |
| Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel | A fully occupied hotel cannot accommodate any more guests. Or can it? Or, once it can, can itnot? |
| Homicidal chauffeur problem | What does a murderous driver have in common with a guided missile? |
| Illegal number | Does the US government forbid knowledge of the existence of certain numbers? |
| Illumination Problem | A room with a bit of a shadow. |
| Indiana pi bill | A notorious attempt to legislate the value ofpi as 3.2. |
| Infinite monkey theorem | An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will (almost surely) produce all possible written texts. |
| Interesting number paradox | Either all natural numbers are interesting or else none of them are. |
| Kruskal's tree theorem | TREE(1) = 1; TREE(2) = 3; TREE(3) = ...wait, where did all my disk space go? |
| Legendre's constant | After 91 years and much effort, this legendary constant was found to be ... 1. Just 1. |
| Look-and-say sequence | Also known as the Cuckoo's Egg. |
| Mathematical fallacy | Trying to prove that 2 = 1 or that 1 < 0. |
| Mathematical joke | Complex numbers are all fun and games until someone loses ani. That's when things getreal. |
| Minkowski's question-mark function | A function with an unusual notation and possessing unusualfractal properties. |
| Monty Hall problem | Thecounter-intuitive way to prevail when playingLet's Make a Deal. |
| Moving sofa problem | What is the largest area of a sofa that can be manoeuvred through an L-shaped corner? |
| NAND logic | Turns out you only need one logic gate to do anything. |
| Narcissistic number | The pluperfect digital invariant says "Countme in"! |
| Nothing-up-my-sleeve number | A number which is "above suspicion". |
| Number of the beast | Forbeastly people bored of the number of unluckiness. |
| Numbers station | [Six bars ofThe Lincolnshire Poacher play] "¡Atención! ¡Atención! One, four, seventeen, twenty-four..." |
| Pair of pants | Topology is not pants-optional. |
| Pi is 3 | Did Japanese education guidelines shockingly redefine pi as exactly 3? No, they didn't, but where's the news story and public outcry in that? |
| Pointless topology | Not as useless as it sounds. |
| Potato paradox | If potatoes consisting of 99% water dry so that they are 98% water, they lose 50% of their weight. |
| Proof by intimidation | The description of this article is trivially constructed and has been left as an exercise for the reader. |
| Ramanujan summation | What do you get when you add all positive integers, up to infinity? You get anegative fraction. |
| Schizophrenic number | Can numbers have mental disorders? |
| Sexy prime | Prime numbers that differ from each other by sex. Er... six. |
| Six nines in pi | Amathematical coincidence, the sequence "999999" appears a mere 762 digits into the decimal expansion ofpi. Nice. |
| Spaghetti sort | An algorithm for sorting rods of spaghetti. |
| Squaring the square | Surely easier thansquaring the circle? You'd be surprised. |
| Squircle | Not quite a square, not quite a circle, definitely not a Pokémon either. |
| Tarski's circle-squaring problem | How to square the circle for real. |
| Taxicab number | Never tell aNumberphile that a number is uninteresting. |
| Tetraphobia | Sometimes found in conjunction with triskaidekaphobia (see below) in East Asian cultures. More prevalent in Japan, where 49 is associated with "suffering until death". |
| Tits group | The perfect sporadic group doesn't exi- |
| Triskaidekaphobia | No, it's not related to theCode of Hammurabi. No, it's not always considered unlucky. Yes, space exploration has beentouched by it. |
| Tupper's self-referential formula | A formula that draws itself! |
| Ulam spiral | A bored mathematician discovers an unusual numerical pattern while doodling. |
| Umbral calculus | A mathematical method successfully used for over 100 years, despite the notable limitation of no one on Earth knowing exactly how or why it worked. |
| Unexpected hanging paradox | If you're told you'll be hanged on a day you'll never expect it, you can prove logically that there's no day you can be hanged at all. Which, of course, means you won't expect it when the hanging does happen as planned. |
| Unknot | The least knotted of all mathematical knots. |
| Vacuous truth | All pigs with wings speak Chinese. |
| Vampire number | Integers with real bite; some even have multiple pairs of fangs. |
| Weird number | They're called weird, so why not include them? The math behind them isn't as weird as the name, though, whose origin also can't seem to be found on Wikipedia or elsewhere. |
| Wheat and chessboard problem | Donot mess with exponential growth, especially while agreeing to a suspiciously-low reward for a commoner. |
| Will Rogers phenomenon | When moving an element from one set to another set raises – counter-intuitively – theaverage values of both sets. Also known as theWill Rogersparadox. |
| Zenzizenzizenzic | You know how x3 is called "x cubed"? Well, x8 is called... |
| Zeroth | Anordinal number popular in computing and related cultures. |
| Abolition of time zones | No more asking "So what time is it there?" |
| Ruth Belville | She followed her parents in the business of selling peopleGreenwich Mean Time. |
| Chrismukkah | A fictional Christmas-Hanukkah hybrid, popularized by the television showThe O.C.. |
| Cinnamon Roll Day | A day too good for this world, too pure. |
| Festivus | December 23: Holiday celebrated by theCostanza family on the television showSeinfeld, since appropriated by many. |
| International Talk Like a Pirate Day | Shiver my timbers (a-harrr!) everySeptember 19. |
| List of non-standard dates | Including, among other things,January 0,February 30, andMay 35. |
| Manhattanhenge | Twice every year, the setting sun aligns with Manhattan's street grid. |
| Mole Day | TheAvogadro constant is celebrated on October 23rd starting at exactly 6:02 am. |
| Pi Day | The day – March 14 – on which the constantπ is celebrated. Thoughtauists may prefer June 28... |
| Pocky & Pretz Day | A day in Japan celebrating long, thin biscuits. Due to their shape, it is celebrated on11/11. |
| Singles' Day | One is the loneliest number.11/11 makes an appropriate date to celebrate being single. |
| Square Root Day | Any date when the day and month are both thesquare root of the last two digits of the year (the next being 6 June 2036). As a result, this can only be celebrated nine times a century. |
| Star Wars Day | May the 4th be with you. |
| Steak and Blowjob Day Cake and Cunnilingus Day | Male alternative to Valentine's Day and female response to that day. |
| Swatch Internet Time | In 1998,Swatch tried to reshape our timing system. |
| Thanksgivukkah | A Thanksgiving-Hanukkah hybrid when the two overlap in November in the US; maybe yourHanukkah present can be aThanksgiving Dinner. |
| Towel Day | Don't forget to bring a towel,terrible or otherwise. |
| Undecimber | InJava, the thirteenth month of the year. |
| Winterval | An attempt to erase Christmas? No, just a word for Birmingham City Council's collective festive plans, but that didn't stop the UK media from going wild. |
| Year 2000 problem | A possible computing problem in the 1990's that was supposed to have occurred when the21st century and3rd millennium arrived. Of course, that never happened. |
| Year 2038 problem | The computing problem that will arise due to theUnix time representation used in many computers. |
| Year zero | Was there a year between1 BC andAD 1? |
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| -ussy | Yes, it means what you think it does. |
| Académie de la Carpette anglaise | A French organisation that "rewards" people who aredoormats for the English language. |
| Antiqua–Fraktur dispute | A dispute over which typeface was more "German". At first, the Nazis were for Fraktur... |
| Apples and oranges | According to scholars, comparing the two may be easier than previously thought. |
| Argumentum ad crumenam Argumentum ad lazarum | Even if money can't buy you happiness, it (or a lack thereof) might win you an argument. |
| Arebica | Turns out, Slavic-based languages can also be written in theArabic script. |
| Belarusian Arabic alphabet | |
| A Book from the Sky | A must-see for connoisseurs ofgibberish. |
| Bouba/kiki effect | You instinctively know exactly which is which, no matter what language you speak. |
| Bow-wow theory | Competitors include the pooh-pooh theory, the ding-dong theory, and the yo-he-ho theory. |
| Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo | A meaningful, grammatical construction that has inspired linguists to talk about bullying amongst Western New York's bison population. |
| Capitalization of Internet | There isinternet andInternet... andInternets. |
| "The Chaos" | The poem that mocks English spelling and pronunciation. Try to read it out loud! |
| Chinese characters of Empress Wu | Ever needed to be taken seriously so hard that you invented completely new characters and forced people to use them? |
| Chinese word for crisis | More notable among Americans than among the Chinese,apparently. |
| Codex Seraphinianus | A made-up enigmatic text released in 1981. |
| Colorless green ideas sleep furiously | A sentence contrived byNoam Chomsky to demonstrate that a sentence can be grammatical yet nonsensical. |
| Comparative illusion | More people have researched these nonsensical sentences than I have. [sic] |
| Contronym | Sometimes you need oversight to prevent oversight. |
| Controversies about the wordniggardly | How a simple word can cause so much controversy. |
| Covfefe | President Trump's most astounding contribution to the modern English lexicon. Absolutely superb, trust me... |
| Crazy English | APPARENTLY A VERY EFFECTIVE WAY TO TEACH ENGLISH TO CHINESE PEOPLE IS BY SHOUTING RANDOM ENGLISH PHRASES AT THEM. |
| Croatian Wikipedia | A once-innocent wiki became subjugated by a fascist regime of editors for 8 years. |
| Cryptophasia | The secret language of identical twins, also calledidioglossia. |
| Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook | Is your hovercraft really full of eels? |
| Disambiguation (disambiguation) | Sometimes people do dumb things. |
| Dord | A nonexistent English word, supposedly meaning "density", found inWebster's New International Dictionary from 1935 to 1939. |
| Dozens (game) | A usually good-naturedAfrican American game in which two competitors, usually male, exchangetrash-talk until one has no comeback. |
| Duck test | A humorous abductive reasoning test based on the activities of a duck. |
| Dze | This Cyrillic letter looks exactly the same as the Latin letterS, making it the ultimate weapon inIDN homograph attacks. |
| Eggcorn | When you say something wrong but it still sounds kinda right. |
| English as She Is Spoke | A 19th century Portuguese-English phrasebook that became legendary for its overtly literal and inaccurate translations. |
| Engrish | Attempts by East Asian people – especially theJapanese – to construct English words and phrases. |
| Eskimo words for snow | The claim thatEskimo languages have an unusually large number of words for "snow". |
| Etaoin shrdlu | Cryptic echoes from the days ofhot metal typesetting. |
| Expletive infixation | Linguists abso-fucking-lutely love to shock students with this knowledge. |
| Faggin–Nazzi alphabet | What? That's its real name. What did youthink it was about? |
| Faux Cyrillic | Give text some of that Яussiaи flavour. |
| Fictitious entry | The content may be fictitious, but the entry is a fact. |
| Fnord | Deliberately misleading, irrelevant or false information meant to suggestconspiracy. A popular word amongDiscordians. |
| Fumblerules | Don't listen to any of this advice. |
| Garden-path sentence | A sentence that doesn't seem grammatically correct, but that's because it tricks you into thinking the verb isn't where it is. It's very easy to catch yourself doing double takes when reading this article. |
| Ghost characters | When your writing system includes 6,355 characters, a few may end up coming out of nowhere. |
| Ghoti | As good an argument as any forEnglish-language spelling reform. |
| Glossary of Wobbly terms | Would you see the beanmaster fry a couple eggs on the banjo? |
| Grawlix | Those symbols in place of profanity have a name, but knowing this fact is $#@&%in' useless! |
| Grelling–Nelson paradox | Is "autological" autological? |
| Hamburgevons | Literally all you need to know if a typeface is any good. |
| Hopi time controversy | A long-lived academic debate about the concept of time in theHopi language. |
| Hyphen War | A dash betweencommunism andindependence. |
| Ingressive sound | In many languages and dialects around the world, a loud inhalation means "yes". |
| Inherently funny word | Some influential comedians have long regarded certain words in theEnglish language as humorous because of their sound or resemblance to other words.Poodle,wankel,ni... |
| Intentionally blank page | The self-refuting meta-reference that is "This page intentionally left blank". |
| Irony punctuation | Is your ironytoo subtle? |
| Irreversible binomial | Or, why it'sfish and chips and notchips and fish. |
| James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher | Repetition gone wrong. |
| A language is a dialect with an army and navy | A solid test. |
| Latin profanity | Latin for the profane. |
| Laws of holes | If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging! |
| La plume de ma tante | One of the first phrases stereotypically learned in French, and outside ofbeing possessed by an ancient Mesopotamian demon, is one of the least likely phrases to ever actually be used in practice. |
| Language deprivation experiments | Also known as "the forbidden experiment". |
| Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den | A 92-character poem written in Classical Chinese, in which every syllable has the sound "shi" (in different tones) when read in modern Mandarin Chinese. |
| List of common false etymologies of English words | Believe it or not, "crap" did not originate fromThomas Crapper. |
| List of English words containing Q not followed by U | AScrabbler's dream article. |
| List of English words without rhymes | Does anything rhyme withorange? Orsilver? |
| List of ethnic slurs | Ever wondered why they got so angry at you? |
| List of linguistic example sentences | 'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' is a valid sentence, and this is why. |
| List of proposed etymologies of OK | There's more than you think, OK? |
| List of shorthand systems | FeaturingGregg,Pitman, and other quickly-written but only-theoretically-readable scripts. |
| Longest words | How are you even gonna say these? |
| Longest word in English | |
| Mamihlapinatapai | The Guinness World Record holder for the "most succinct word". |
| Martian language | Chinese language + Internet = new language. |
| May you live in interesting times | The worst curse you can put on someone. Probably not Chinese in origin. |
| Metal umlaut | Gïvë thë lögö för ÿöürhëävÿ mëtäl bänd ä töüghGërmänïc fëël. |
| Muphry's law | Proceedvery cautiously before correcting someone else's grammar. |
| Murad Takla | Converting the Bengali language to Latin script can sometimes haveinteresting consequences. |
| "My postillion has been struck by lightning" | A perfectly normal thing to say, as recommended by 19th century multilingual phrasebooks. |
| Newton's flaming laser sword | Not an actual weapon, but aphilosophical razor created by an Australian mathematician. |
| Nucular | Enough people have mispronouncednuclear that it's apparently a real word now. |
| -ough | The combination that has inspired delightful poems through tough thorough thought. |
| Phaistos Disc | Ancientspirals of undecipheredhieroglyphs. |
| Placeholder name | You know, thingamajigs, doohickeys, whatchamacallits... |
| Pompatus | AllSteve Miller's fault. |
| Potrzebie | A Polish word best known to American readers ofMAD magazine. |
| Pronunciation of GIF | Remember when the internet spent most of 2014 arguing about this? Good times. |
| RAS syndrome | ...which is itself an example of RAS. |
| Rebracketing | How an ickname became a nickname. |
| Renaming of Turkmen months and days of week | TheTurkmen leader changed the months and days' names to referencehis book; he named January after himself, April after his mother, and September after the book. |
| Response to sneezing | Achoo! A great fortunate occurrence! |
| Robert Shields | You thinkyou are hooked on recording every detail of your life...? |
| Rohonc Codex | A mysterious book found in Hungary that to this day remains unsolved. |
| Scientific wild-ass guess | Please excuse my SWAG. |
| Scots Wikipedia | What happens when an American teen writes 23,000 articles in a language he has no idea how to speak? |
| Shavian alphabet | A new (well, 1960s) alphabet made exclusively for English. |
| Shibboleth | A type of slang used to identify an individual with a very specific region, usually with accompanied value judgments. Also, a funny word. |
| Shit happens | A statement of philosophical existentialism boiled down to two words. |
| Shm-reduplication | Ah, Wikipedia-shmikipedia. |
| Skunked term | If "it's all downhill from here", shouldn't it mean it's easy? |
| Spelling of Shakespeare's name | What is the correct spelling of the famous English playwright? |
| Spoonerism | When you accidentally switch the beginnings of two words tile whalking— er, while talking. |
| Strč prst skrz krk | Who needs vowels anyway? |
| Taito | A kanji with 84 strokes, the most for any CJK character by some distance. |
| Talk to the hand | ...'cause the face ain't listening. |
| Tenevil | Chukchi man who independentlycreated his own writing system for theChukchi language. |
| Thagomizer | The word referring to those spikes on the tails ofStegosauria originated fromthe same guy that made "Cow tools". |
| The Moon is made of green cheese | Is it really made out of cheese? |
| There is no sex in the USSR | Did you know that? |
| Thinking about the immortality of the crab | A colorful Spanish idiom fordaydreaming; try using this one if your teacher notices you becoming inattentive in class. |
| Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana | Another example ofsyntactic ambiguity. |
| Toynbee tiles | Tiles found embedded inasphalt, usually sporting cryptic messages. |
| Tsundoku | Buy a book and then don't read it. |
| Tuffet | What did Miss Muffet sit on? |
| Ugly Gerry | A typeface where each letter is represented by a not-so-beautifulU.S. congressional district. |
| Unknown unknowns | Things that we don't know we don't know, as immortalised byDonald Rumsfeld. |
| Uncleftish Beholding | "Atomic theory" inAnglish. |
| Unpaired word | Can you be shevelled, kempt, and gainly? |
| Voynich manuscript | An undeciphered illustrated book written six hundred or so years ago by an anonymous author using an unidentified alphabet. |
| Wine-dark sea | Homer's epithet that raises a theory that Greeks of his time werecolor blind. |
| Yan tan tethera | The proper,Brythonic way to count sheepoop North. |
| "Yo mama" joke | What is this article about? Your- |
| Zhemao hoaxes | An editor onChinese Wikipedia created over 200 articles about fakeRussian history, making it one of the largesthoaxes on Wikipedia. |
| Zzxjoanw | A fictional word that really confused linguists. |
| Abercraf English | How an all-new variety ofEnglish has developed in a singleWelsh village sinceWorld War II. |
| Algonquian–Basque pidgin | The linguistic fruit of the travels ofBasque whalers. |
| Basque–Icelandic pidgin | |
| Anāl language | Its phonemic inventory, sadly, doesn't include thevoiced anal fricative. |
| Andalusian language movement | A group of people have attempted to promoteAndalusian Spanish as a distinctlanguage. They have successfully created an Andalusian version ofMinecraft. |
| Antarctic English | Not spoken bypenguins. |
| Arcaicam Esperantom | How do you make things look "old" in aconstructed language? By inventing a new one! |
| Boontling | Bet it seems pretty crazeek to harp boont to a kimmie Brightlighter like you, huh? |
| Big Nambas language | A language named after a Vanuatuan tribe'spenis sheaths. |
| Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin | Apidgin formed in 20th centuryWestern Australia fromAboriginal Australian English,Japanese, andKupang Malay to facilitate communication between the variety of groups working on pearling boats in theKimberley region. |
| Cia-Cia | Alanguage in Indonesia that came to use theKorean script. |
| DoggoLingo | Hoomanz wrote thiz cool article about mailanguage! |
| Dravido-Korean languages | A discarded and mostly-forgotten hypothesis thatKorean and theDravidian languages ofSouthern India made up a singlelanguage family, despite being thousands of kilometres apart and sharing very little common history. |
| E-Prime | A form ofEnglish without the verb 'to be'. |
| Gyaru-moji | Every culture develops its own version of Leet, including in this case, young Japanese women. |
| High Tider | Some people in rural coastal areas ofNorth Carolina,Virginia, andMaryland still speak a dialect derived from theEnglish spoken over 300 years ago. |
| Ithkuil | Try learning this in aweekend! |
| Jamaican Maroon Creole | Acreole language withAkan vocabulary that is spoken byJamaican Maroons in rituals involving spiritual possession. |
| Kebabnorsk | The delicious-soundingethnolect prevalent in multi-ethnicOslo. |
| Leet | T3h 1@ngu/\&e 0fH@xx0rz. |
| Lojban | Aconstructed language based onpredicate logic. |
| Mediterranean Lingua Franca | The originallingua franca. Spoken from the11th to the19th centuries withsubstrata fromVenetian,Genoese,Catalan,Occitan,Spanish,Portuguese,Turkish,Arabic,Berber,Greek,Sicilian,Galician, and many more. |
| Nicaraguan Sign Language | Nicaraguandeaf children create their ownlanguage after only being taught to lip-readSpanish, fascinate linguists. |
| Pandanus language | "Don't use regular words, you'll ruin thescrewpine nuts." A prime example of anavoidance language. |
| Pirahã language | Alanguage spoken by the AmazonianPirahã people, and an example of alanguage that can bewhistled. The subject of controversial claims that it proves the theory oflinguistic relativity. |
| Pig Latin | Away anguagelay amegay orfay idskay atthay eaturesfay away unfay ayway otay ellspay ordsway! Onay attermay ifay ou'reyay anay adultay, it'say illstay icenay! |
| Plains Indian Sign Language | Despite (mostly) not beingdeaf, the indigenous peoples of theNorth American Plains developed asign language to use as alingua franca. |
| Proto-Human language | The (completely hypothetical) genetic ancestor to all the world's languages. |
| Pseudo-Chinese | Easy Japanese-to-Chinese translation: just keep all the kanji. Oops, thanks to Japanese's origins, you just accidentally re-inventedClassical Chinese. |
| Russenorsk | A Slavic-Scandinavianpidgin that lasted only 150 years. |
| Silbo Gomero | The inhabitants ofLa Gomera of theCanary Islands communicate across valleys bywhistling inSpanish. |
| Solresol | Aconstructed language based aroundmusical notes. |
| Sḵwx̱wú7mesh | The native name of the indigenousSquamishlanguage ofBritish Columbia, which uses thenumber 7 as a letter. |
| Toki Pona | The opposite of the previously mentionedIthkuil. Inspired by minimalism andTaoist philosophy, this constructedlanguage has only 137 regularly used words. |
| Ubykh language | A very recently extinctCircassianlanguage with 84 phonemicconsonants (a record for non-click languages), but only 2 distinctvowels. |
| Viossa | A pidgin language deliberately created via an online experiment in which participants are banned from using any common language to communicate. |
| Wenzhounese | And you thoughtMandarin was hard? A Chinese dialect nicknamed "the devil'slanguage" for its extreme divergence and difficulty. |
| ǃXóõ | Aclick language with 122consonants spoken by groups ofSan people inNamibia andBotswana. |
| Yaminjeongeum | 세종머앟늰익 읚머한 윾산. |
| Yerkish | Anartificial language developed for use by non-humanprimates. |
SeeNominative determinism for the idea that people gravitate toward careers that fit their names, e.g. urologists named Splat and Weedon.
| Amandagamani Abhaya of Anuradhapura | A king of Anuradhapura whose name has way too many As for me to be comfortable with. |
| Alfonso de Borbón y Borbón | A Spanish nobleman with a whopping 88 forenames. |
| Arses of Persia | Unfortunately, 4th century BC Persian rulers were unable to predict modern profanity. |
| Cardinal Sin | A CatholicArchbishop of Manila who was instrumental in thePeople Power Revolution. |
| Dick Assman | What? He was a celebrity for four months! |
| Dick Swett | TheU.S. Ambassador to Denmark from 1998 to 2001. |
| Harry Baals | Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana in the 1950s and had a really unfortunate name. Almost immortalized in the Harry Baals Government Center, but it ended up being namedCitizens Square instead. |
| C. H. D. Buys Ballot | No evidence of electoral fraud by the chairman of a precursor to theWorld Meteorological Organization. |
| Praise-God Barebone | Christened Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone; not to be confused with his sonNicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon. |
| Bishop Bishop | There have beenfour different bishops named Bishop in England. |
| Dick Bong | The most successful American fighter pilot'slegal name was Richard, but he only ever went by the name "Dick Bong". |
| Bumpy Bumpus | He bumped too hard and too far. Rest in peace, Bumpy Bumpus. |
| Dick Butkus | A Pro Football Hall of Famer who played 9 years for theChicago Bears. |
| Ching Cheong | A real Chinese journalist and former political prisoner, and not a slur. |
| Thursday October Christian I | The son ofFletcher Christian, leader of themutiny on theBounty. |
| Seymour Cocks | British MP between 1929 and 1953. |
| Deportivo Wanka | An unfortunately named Peruvian football team whose strips are remarkably popular in Britain. |
| Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft | An officials' association in pre-warVienna,Austria, of a shipping company for transporting passengers and cargo on theDanube. |
| Bum Farto | A fire chief who was revealed as part of a drug trafficking conspiracy, then was gone with the... wind. |
| Preserved Fish | A historical New York City shipping merchant. |
| FM-2030 | Atranshumanist philosopher changed his name to this, inspired by his predictions for the year 2030. |
| Gaylord Silly | The article on this French-Seychellois runner does not discuss his sexual orientation, or wherever or not he is whimsical. |
| Gregor Fučka | A Slovenian-born Italian basketball player with another socially problematic last name. |
| John le Fucker | His surname probably didn't mean what you think it might mean. Unlike the laterRoger Fuckebythenavele, whose name did mean that. |
| Argel Fucks | ABrazilianfootballer with a socially problematic last name. An unforgettable newspaper headline once declared "Fucks Off toBenfica". |
| Jakob Fugger | One of the richest men in history, with another quite unfortunate surname. |
| Gag name | Why can't I find Amanda Huggenkiss? |
| States Rights Gist | A Confederate general during theAmerican Civil War. (Hey,maybe it was about...) |
| John B. Goodenough | Being good enough, this guy inventedrandom access memory and thelithium-ion battery. |
| Goodspaceguy | Perennial political candidate inSeattle who legally changed his name to align with his passion for space colonization. |
| Curtis Hidden Page | An American writer whose middle and last names accidentally predicted the Internet, and the countless pages on it that could only be accessed by typing their URLs in the URL bar manually. |
| Ima Hogg | American society leader, philanthropist, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century. |
| Huang Hong-cheng, Ah Cheng from Taiwan, World’s Greatest Man, God of Wealth, and President | A performance artist who tookfull advantage of Taiwan's naming law. |
| Christmas Humphreys | Helped makeBuddhism popular in the UK. |
| Tiny Kox | A Dutch politician. |
| Jennifer 8. Lee | A formerNew York Times reporter whose middle name is the number eight. And you thoughtHarry S. Truman had an exceptional middle name... |
| Marx Lenin | Can't choose between communist names? Why not both? Both is good. |
| List of examples of Stigler's law | Bode didn't discoverBode's Law, and Pascal didn't discoverPascal's Triangle. (And Stigler didn't create Stigler's law.) |
| Henry Lizardlover | Yes, he appreciates reptiles. |
| Seán Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus | An Irish politician who changed his name to emphasize political affiliations. |
| Mannanafnanefnd | A committee in Iceland that determines whether a name is suitable for integration into theIcelandic language. Apparently voted yes about themselves. |
| Adolf Lu Hitler Marak | This Indian politician does not dispraise his parents'questionable name choice. |
| Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos | Did you know that Russian revolutionary and leader of the BolsheviksVladimir Lenin was aCIA asset? |
| Mister Mxyzptlk | Sometimes called Mxy, a fictional impish character who appears in DC Comics'Superman comic books. |
| Names of Soviet origin | In the wake of theRussian Revolution, there was a craze for parents giving names of overtly revolutionary or Soviet inspiration. Examples include "Vladlen" (short forVladimir Lenin), "Revmir" ("Revolution of the world"), "Elmira" (electrification of the world), "Barrikad" (barricade) and "Geliy" (helium). |
| Naming law in Sweden | An odd Swedish law regulating children's names, which has led to disgruntled parents submitting names such as Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, A (both pronounced "Albin"), andMetallica. |
| Neville Neville | The father of English footballersPhil Neville andGary Neville. |
| Che Bong Nga | ACham king whose name does not relate toa smoking device ora Teletubby, as his nickname, Po Binasuor, resembles "dinosaur" only by substituting the D with a B. |
| Metta World Peace | An NBA player who wants to promote World Peace and has a reputation foron-court brawls. See also the similarly-namedWorld B. Free. |
| Manley Power | His name describes what you needed to be a distinguished officer in the British Army at the time.His great-grandson carried on the tradition. |
| Bongbong Marcos | He was definitely not named aftera device where you smoke cannabis and tobacco. |
| Pro-Life | A perennial political candidate with strongly held views. |
| Public Universal Friend | An 18th century Quaker who died, and was then revived, becoming an evangelist, gaining this unusual name, and becoming one of the earliest instances in recorded history of a person identifying as genderless. |
| Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz | And that's theshort title of this German beef labelling law. |
| Tokyo Sexwale | Despite not being Japanese or asperm whale, he has control over the global diamond industry. |
| Mansfield Smith-Cumming | The first head ofMI6, whose namebecame appropriate as he promoted the use ofsemen asinvisible ink. |
| Guy Standing | Observed sitting in his infobox photo, whichsomehowled to an edit war. |
| M. K. Stalin | What ifold Joe was Tamil? |
| Téa | This name is surprisingly French and not English. |
| Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos | A warning to us all about takingdouble-barrelled surnames too far... |
| Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache | Somehow, it's not even the longest or most extravagant name among hisfamily. |
| Tonibler | A name given inKosovo in honor ofa certain British politician. |
| Dick Trickle | American race car driver and 1989 NASCAR Rookie of the Year. |
| Turnipseed | Only the most hardcore turnip farmers have this name! |
| Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr. | The longest name ever given. Note: the page title is only the short form. |
| Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck | Educational professional who earned her Ph.D. with a dissertation on uncommon Black names in the classroom. |
| Osama Vinladen | Brother to the equally concerning Sadam Huseín. |
| Mary Yu | Fittingly to her name, she officiated the first same-sex marriage in the US state of Washington. |
| Archaeoacoustics | Can ancientpottery be used to play back recorded voices from the distant past? |
| Airborne radioactivity increase in Europe in autumn 2017 | It's bizarre, but it did happen. |
| Ota Benga | The tragic story of aPygmy man from theBelgian Congo who was briefly exhibited in theBronx Zoo. |
| Beringer's Lying Stones | Fossils planted by God? No, just a prank created to discredita professor whom the hoaxers didn't like. |
| Buttered cat paradox | If a cat always lands on its feet and toast always lands buttered-side-down, what if...? |
| Buttered toast phenomenon | But only if you're eating at a table. |
| Campanology | For the good of society, we must study how to properly ring bells. |
| Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre | SI rules says you can't use a capital letter for a unit unless it's named after a person, but everyone uses L for thelitre... so they made up a namesake. |
| Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles | This scientific paper has the longest article name on Wikipedia (250 characters out of a possible 255). The paper itself only has five words, though. |
| Vladimir Demikhov | EminentSoviet biologist and father of the canine head transplant. |
| Drake's Plate of Brass | A forgery-related practical joke that went horribly awry. |
| Elvis taxon | Ataxon (species, genus, family, etc.) that is extinct but is later imitated by others. |
| Further research is needed | Some journals have banned this infuriating and redundant cliché. Some researchers are researching its effects, but FRIN... |
| Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory | You may have had a chemistry set when you were a child. I bet it didn't come with radioactive substances in the box. |
| Greeble | Stimuli used in studies of object and face recognition with hilarious names. |
| Kardashian index | There is aninverse relationship between a scientist's social media presence and theircitation metric. |
| Lazarus taxon | Leaping Lazarus! Somewhat likeMonty Python'sDead Parrot, it's not really dead; it's just resting. |
| List of Ig Nobel Prize winners | Nobel Prize meetsWeird Science. Result: Award-winning papers like "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts" and "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans". |
| Nobel disease | When someone embraces crankery despite—or because of—being a Nobel laureate. |
| Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism | The intersection of science and religion in a simple bacterium. |
| 'Pataphysics | A parody of science that purports to study what lies beyond the realm ofmetaphysics. |
| Archaeological interest of Pedra da Gávea | Did ancient Phoenicians visit Brazil centuries before the Portuguese? Actually, no, they did not. |
| Pathological science | A pejorative term for scientific ideas that will simply not "go away", long after they are given up on as wrong by the majority of scientists in the field. |
| John Stapp | Stapp would willingly strap himself into a rocket, endure multiple dozens of Gs, and write notes afterwards, briefly breaking the land speed record while simultaneously withstanding 46 g (the most acceleration voluntarily encountered by a human) in 1954. Also credited with coiningMurphy's law in its final form. |
| Physics envy | When the social sciences are infused with mathematics- and physics-like principles. |
| Planck's principle | The idea that "science progresses one funeral at a time". |
| Project Steve | In response to creationists' attempts to create a list of evolution-denying scientists, this even longer list consists of scientists who believe in evolution and are called Steve (or some variation). |
| Raven paradox | First, you'll grant that all ravens are black, yes...? |
| Sokal affair | PhysicistAlan Sokal demonstrates that at least somepostmodernists can't see anemperor with no clothes. |
| Timeline of the far future | The ultimate list of spoilers. Also gives you an existential crisis. |
| Halomonas titanicae | A unique species of bacteria found at thewreck of the Titanic. |
| John G. Trump | A physicist and inventor with a quite underrated career. Among other things, he was the co-inventor of one of the first million-voltX-ray generators and the man that analyzedNikola Tesla's hotel room after his death. Also the paternal uncle ofDonald Trump. |
| The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of "Writer's Block" | |
| Women-are-wonderful effect | A subconscious bias that makes people consider positive attributes to be connected to women more than men, regardless of the gender you ask. |
| Anatoli Bugorski | What happens when you stick your head in aparticle accelerator? |
| Barrer | A unit containing four different uses of the centimetre, none of which cancels and two of which aren't even used to measure physical size. |
| Colors of noise | Includingwhite,pink, purple, blue... |
| David Hahn | A 17-year-old, known as theRadioactive Boy Scout, who irradiated his back yard attempting to build anuclearbreeder reactor from spare parts. |
| Demon core | A two-timeradioactive killer. |
| Deutsche Physik | Or "German physics" during theThird Reich. May have caused them to never bother trying to develop nukes. |
| F. D. C. Willard | Thepen name of acat who wrote academic papers in the field ofcryogenics. |
| Fictional elements, materials, isotopes and subatomic particles | Not actual periodic elements. Many end in '-ite'. Some of the elements may indeed be minerals. |
| Fourth, fifth, and sixth derivatives of position | Named after afamous cereal phenomenon. |
| Flying ice cube | They happen to live inside the computers of scientists trying to simulate molecules. |
| Frog battery | A curious experiment to determine the existence of animalelectricity. |
| Furry's theorem | *notices yourquantum electrodynamics*OwO? |
| Impossible color | Try to see it! |
| Kundt's tube | A serious piece of scientific apparatus whose name has induced sniggering among English-speaking schoolchildren for over 150 years. |
| List of non-coherent units of measurement | Fortnights and nibbles, super feet and Sagans. |
| Mpemba effect | Hot water freezes faster than cool water, and no one is sure why. Also probably the only scientific term named after a Tanzanian schoolboy. |
| Oh-My-God particle | Proof that physicists have a dramatic flair. |
| Pauli effect | Something in the lab not working? Technical difficulties? Blamethis guy. |
| Quantum suicide and immortality | An infinite number of parallel universes means that any one person will always live forever. |
| Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube | What happens when you blow in a hole in a tube? Hot air comes out one end and cold air comes out the other. No consensus reached on why it happens yet. |
| Rheology of peanut butter | A serious analysis of the tastiestviscoelasticcolloid. |
| Shower-curtain effect | Nobody knows why when you turn on the hot water in the shower, the curtain blows in. |
| Smoot | A strange unit of distance used to measure the Harvard Bridge. |
| Sound of fingernails scraping chalkboard | Urrrgggh! |
| The Hum | Can you hear it? Not everyone can, but you're not alone. |
| 2006 Mumbai sweet seawater incident | Salty creek becomes sweet for one tide cycle. |
| Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition | An ill-fated attempt to reach theNorth Pole in 1897. |
| Ararat anomaly | A strange geological element that, for years, has confused practicing Christians and geologists. |
| Bloop | A mysterious underwater animal-like sound that was loud enough to be heard across the Pacific Ocean. |
| Bone Wars | Two rivals spend 15 years expanding mankind's knowledge of dinosaur life and research ethics. |
| Catatumbo lightning | At one lake in Venezuela, constant thunderstorms are just a regular occurrence. |
| Floyd Collins | A cave explorer from the early 20th century that got stuck in a cave in Kentucky. Despite a massive rescue effort, he ended up dying there, but that wasn't the end of his story. |
| Continental drip | A playful theory devised to explain why the continents are tapered toward the south. |
| Expanding Earth | A theory that the Earth is growing. |
| The Final Experiment | An expedition that took Flat Earthers to Antarctica to seethe absolute proof that they're wrong. Naturally, some Flat Earthers continued to ignore it. |
| Gore effect | Whereby it gets colder when climate change campaigners come to town. |
| Hector (cloud) | A cumulonimbus thundercloud cluster that forms regularly nearly every afternoon on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory of Australia, from approximately September to March each year. Also known as "Hector the Convector." |
| List of Alaska tornadoes | It's rare, but it does happen! |
| List of Hawaii tornadoes | |
| List of unexplained sounds | Must've been the wind. |
| Nicolia (plant) | A fossil plant that was mistakenly identified as a dinosaur,Aachenosaurus. |
| Rain of animals | When it's literally raining cats and dogs. |
| Red rain in Kerala | Did blood rain from the sky? |
| Snow in Florida | Yes, snow is not unknown in the "Sunshine State". |
| South-up map orientation | The crew ofApollo 17 snapped Earth with Antarctica on top. NASA followed Ptolemy and rotated it "back". |
| Roy Sullivan | An unluckypark ranger who was hit bylightning on seven separate occasions. He survived them all, but came to his own tragic end. |
| Tinnunculite | A recently discovered mineral that forms from birdfeces. |
| Waffle House Index | The U.S. government's alternative measure of disaster impact. |
| Weather rock | The only 100% active and 100% accurate meteorologist. |
| 9,10-Dithioanthracene | The molecule that walks. |
| Botulinum toxin | One of the most deadly substances known is nonetheless extremely common in the cosmetic industry. |
| 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union | The largest gem diamond ever found in Russia, and thatis it's real name. |
| Dihydrogen monoxide | A commonly used chemical that can be deadly to all forms of plant and animal life, contributing toglobal warming,erosion,acid rain,torture and countless other maladies. Or... that's what they want you to think. |
| Elephant's Foot | One of the world's most toxic objects, created as a product of theChernobyl disaster. |
| Fogbank | A nuclear warhead-related material so classified that its creators – the U.S.National Nuclear Security Administration – forgot how to make it. |
| Goiânia accident | The world's worst nuclear incident that didn't begin in a radioactive power plant. |
| List of chemical compounds with unusual names | Some a consequence of their constituents or origins, others simply the work of whimsical chemists. |
| Thomas Midgley Jr. | Inventor of two of the world's most severe pollutants – and a device that killed him. |
| NanoPutian | A series of organic molecules having a structure that looks human. |
| New car smell | Ahh, that new car smell. What do you mean, it might be toxic? |
| Nitrogen triiodide | What's purple and explodes if a feather brushes it? |
| Orotidine 5'-phosphate decarboxylase | Known for its extreme catalysis, this enzyme can reduce the time required for a reaction from 78 million years to 18 milliseconds. |
| Pitch drop experiment | The world's most viscous liquid, dripping out of a funnel at the University of Queensland since 1927. There's been 9 drops so far. |
| James Price | An alchemist who went to the most extreme lengths possible to avoid having to prove his findings. |
| Pykrete | A bullet-resistant frozen-water compound once used in an attempt to create anaircraft carrier. |
| Smell of freshly cut grass | A nostalgic odor that plays a role inplant communication as a chemical cry of agony. |
| Thiotimoline | A fictional chemical which dissolvesbefore it comes into contact with water. |
| Trimethylaminuria | Do you smell something fishy? It may be you! |
| Unobtainium | A term used to describe any material with properties that are unlikely or impossible for any real material to possess. |
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| 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg | Perhaps one of the first "alien" sightings in recorded history. |
| Apollo 15 postal covers incident | Three astronauts never flew to space again after being paid to takepostal covers with them onApollo 15. But that's not much of a punishment though, considering they got to go to the freakin'Moon. |
| Blue Origin Federation, LLC v. United States | Two companies got into a brat fight and sued NASA in the process. |
| Judith Love Cohen | One of the most important female scientists involved with theApollo program, andJack Black's mother. Some might say this is not the best article on Wikipedia....this is just atribute to her. |
| COCONUTS-2b | The size of that planet's orbit is nuts! |
| Cosmic latte | The average colour of the Universe: a slightly beige white. |
| Cydonia (Mars) | You've heard of the man on the Moon, now get ready for the "Face on Mars", well, sort of... |
| Edward Makuka Nkoloso | The leader of a non-governmentZambian space program planned to send "Afronauts" toMars with the goal of establishing a Christian ministry to civiliseMartians. |
| Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster | Driving in space becomes reality. Also briefly misidentified as an asteroid. |
| Embryo space colonization | A proposal for colonizing space using embryos raised by robots. |
| Extraterrestrial real estate | Want to buy a housing plot on theMoon? |
| Fallen Astronaut | A small statuette which is the only sculpture on theMoon. |
| Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey | Five mice who circled the Moon 75 times onApollo 17, among the last eight Earthlings to travel to the Moon. Upon returning to Earth, the four remaining living mice were soon killed and dissected in the name of science. ("That's one small squeak...") |
| Finger of God Globule | Amolecular cloud known for resembling the middle finger, a hand pointing at other stars, and worst of all, ...a penis? |
| 229762 Gǃkúnǁʼhòmdímà | Have fun trying to type this out! |
| Gauss's Pythagorean right triangle proposal | Proposal of Pythagorean theorem "drawing" to be constructed in the Siberian tundra as a signal for extraterrestrials. |
| Harlan J. Smith Telescope | Have you heard about the telescope that got shot? Contrary to initial reports, the harm from the bullets was extraordinary small. |
| Hot, dust-obscured galaxy | Hot DOGs, anyone? |
| International Space Station cannabis experiment hoax | Need we say more? |
| iPTF14hls | Argh, why won't this star die!? |
| Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect | Sadly, the alignment of two (or perhapsone and a half?) planets wouldn't allow the British public to float. Maybe the fact that the news came out onApril 1 should have clued them in. |
| Guillaume Le Gentil | The unluckiest astronomer that ever lived. |
| List of hypothetical Solar System objects | The planets that could have been. You thinkPluto had it rough? At least it got its fifteen minutes of astronomical fame. |
| Lunar pareidolia | People have claimed to see everything from rabbits and human figures to the face of a Moroccan king on the Moon. |
| Lunarcrete | Perfect for building your own cut-price Moon base. |
| Mare Moscoviense | A lunar geological feature whose name was accepted only whenan astronomer argued that Moscow is a "state of mind". |
| Mars Climate Orbiter | Failed Mars mission that disintegrated in the Martian atmosphere due to a unit conversion error. |
| Matrioshka brain | I heard you likeDyson spheres, so I put a Dyson sphere in your Dyson sphere. |
| Mimas | A moon that looks like theDeath Star. |
| The Moon is made of green cheese | Scientific consensus says it isn't, but are there people (or wolves) who think so? |
| Moon landing conspiracy theories | Fake photos, slow-motion cameras and secret studios. All directed byStanley Kubrick. |
| Moon Museum | Only two people have ever seen its exhibits in person. |
| Nazi UFOs | Did the Luftwaffe, in fact, explore the final frontier and make contact with alien races? Whether the secret Nazi base is on the Moon or in Antarctica, the truth is apparently out there. |
| Nuclear pasta | Gnocchi, spaghetti, lasagna, bucatini and Swiss cheese may sound tasty at first, until you realized that one teaspoon of this pasta outweighsMount Everest... |
| Peryton (astronomy) | Don't usemicrowaves next to radio telescopes! |
| Seatbelt basalt | A lunar sample spotted byDavid Scott while driving theLunar Roving Vehicle on the moon. He assumed that mission control wouldn't allow him to stop and get it, so he pretended he was fastening his seatbelt. |
| Sex in space | And when you've exhaustedthe list, here's something new to try! |
| Solway Firth Spaceman | "Wasn't there when I took the pic – honest!" |
| Space advertising | Plans to launch giant billboards into space. |
| Space elevator competitions | How high can you go? |
| Spaghettification | What happens when you fall into ablack hole. |
| Space Poop Challenge | A challenge in 2016 to design a new toilet system for use in space. |
| Space selfie | Doing it for the 'gram. |
| Stolen and missing Moon rocks | The rocks were out of this world! Unfortunately, they fell into the wrong hands. |
| Superhump | When a star thrusts in brightness. |
| Sylacauga | The first fallenmeteorite in recorded history to have verifiably injured a human. |
| Timekeeping on Mars | How Martians know when they are. |
| Vatican Observatory | One of the few official scientific institutions linked with theCatholic Church. |
| Vulcan (hypothetical planet) | A proposed planet that some astronomers in the 19th century believed existed between theSun andMercury. The fact it used to be believed means that no planet can ever be named afterVulcan fromStar Trek because the name's already been taken. |
| 274301 Wikipedia | An asteroid named after Wikipedia. We truly came to the stars. |
| Wow! signal | Alien radio transmission, or, at least, the strongest candidate for that role. |
| Writing in space | How do you write in space? |
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| Accessory breast | Some people have more than two. |
| Alien hand syndrome | An unusual neurological disorder, also known as "Dr. Strangelove syndrome", whereby one of the sufferer's hands seems to take on a life of its own. |
| Anal wink | Here's looking at you! |
| Auto-brewery syndrome | Like amicrobrewery in yourdigestive system. |
| Banana equivalent dose | A banana for scale. |
| Black hairy tongue | Really? |
| Bristol stool scale | Taking a close look at a toilet bowl for the sake of science. The scale was inspired byeye charts. |
| ChIA-PET | Chromatin Interaction Analysis by Paired-End Tag sequencing, that is. |
| Chronic Lyme disease | A conspiracy theory about long-lasting effects ofLyme disease, not to be confused withactual latent symptoms of Lyme disease. |
| Coffee enema | A bizarre type ofalternative medicine. |
| Danger triangle of the face | A very specific area of your face where bursting a boil could mean certain death. |
| Dimples of Venus | For fans of those dimples you don't find on a face. |
| DNA origami RNA origami | Two different types of nanoscale origami. |
| Dr. Young's Ideal Rectal Dilators | Forcibly withdrawn after officials clamped down on them. |
| Eigengrau | The color seen by the eye in perfect darkness. |
| Fart lighting | The act of igniting gases produced by human flatulence. |
| Fiddler's neck | Maybe this is proof that God hates violinists. |
| Five-second rule | The notion that food dropped on the floor is safe to eat only as long as it's picked up within five seconds. |
| Geographic tongue | When a map appears on your tongue. |
| Grape surgery | They did surgery on a grape, quite a few times actually |
| Gynecomastia | Also known as "man boobs" or "moobs". |
| Hair-grooming syncope | Who knew that brushing your hair could be deadly? |
| Human–animal breastfeeding | If you have breast milk to spare, a puppy, piglet or monkey would like to hear from you. |
| Hypertrichosis | Also known as "humanwerewolf syndrome". |
| Hypoalgesic effect of swearing | Got hurt? Swear the pain away! |
| Jenkem | Huffing the gas fromfermentedhuman feces for ahallucinating effect. |
| Jogger's nipple | That uncomfortable friction some people get while running has a name. |
| Louse-feeder | In search of a cure for typhus, humans let lice feed on them. |
| Lucky iron fish | Treatanemia by putting an iron fish in your soup. |
| Maggot therapy | Thosehungry, wriggling little larvae will clean up festering wounds because they are hungry. |
| Male lactation | Given the right conditions, just about any male can do it. |
| Maple syrup urine disease | For once, a sweet smell you don't want your infants exuding. |
| Medical students' disease | A condition frequently reported inmedical students who perceive themselves to be experiencing the symptoms of the diseases they are studying. |
| Mellified man | A legendary medicinal substance from Arabia involving honey. |
| Michelin tire baby syndrome | Babies that look like the Michelin man. |
| Moebius syndrome | A disease, most envied bypoker players, that makesfacial expressions impossible. |
| Morangos com Açúcar Virus | Did a Portuguese teen soap opera cause an epidemic? |
| Mucophagy | The consumption ofmucus. |
| Nacirema | An obscureNew World tribe with some interesting practices. |
| Nasal sebum | Yes, that stuff on the surface of your nose. |
| Nitroglycerin (medication) | Got heart disease? Here, take somedynamite. |
| Old person smell | Apparently developed to allow humans to avoid partnering with people who are too old for them. Not to be confused withdeath smell (though they're not incompatible in some places). |
| Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis | A tooth in the eye (is worth two in the foot?). |
| Paleofeces | Our ancestors'poop. Worth a close look, apparently. |
| Peanut butter test | A diagnostic test for Alzheimer's disease which measures subjects' ability to smell peanut butter through each nostril. |
| Photic sneeze reflex | People who sneeze when suddenly exposed to bright light. |
| Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis | That's a mouthful! Good thing it has a much shorter name:silicosis. |
| Powder of sympathy | Healing a wound of war by applying a powder... to the weapon that caused it. |
| Rapunzel syndrome | Chewing on your hair is one thing, but actually eating it can have some untoward results. |
| Resting bitch face | Some people may look angry or contemptuous when they're actually perfectly relaxed. |
| Retained surgical instruments | An unfortunate possible side-effect ofsurgery. |
| Schmidt sting pain index | Anentomologist is stung by just about everything known to sting and, en route, describes the pain involved in terms of a four-point comparative scale. |
| Sungazing | The best strat for anAny%blindness speedrun. |
| Supernumerary nipple | A condition in which one has an additional nipple. Apparently 1 in 18 people have this condition. |
| Takotsubo cardiomyopathy | Yes, you can die from a broken heart. |
| Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body | Just because you're not a rhino, or a tiger, or a pangolin, doesn't mean you're safe. |
| Trepanation | Making a hole in the skull was previously thought to cure problems likeepilepsy or allow a person to enter into a higher state of consciousness. |
| Uncombable hair syndrome | Not just a bad hair day. |
| Water intoxication | Too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and that applies to even the most necessary thing humans need. |
| Wenis | The actual term, by the way. |
| White-nose syndrome | Bats with white noses: sounds cute, is horrifying. |
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| Autocunnilingus | Like autofellatio (see below), but much more difficult. |
| Autofellatio | Acts of oral self-stimulation. |
| Bathroom sex | Ever wanted todefecate and have sex at the same time? Well now you can! |
| Bread dildo | A supposedsex toy originating fromAncient Greece, made ofbread. |
| Cello scrotum | Ahoax illness allegedly affecting malecello players. |
| Coregasm | Anorgasm caused by exercising of thecore abdominal muscles. |
| Death during consensual sex | Talk about going out with a bang... |
| Donkey punch | Allegedly a sex move involving punching one's partner in the back of the head during intercourse. |
| Female hysteria | A once-common diagnosis of a range of symptoms in women, cured throughmasturbation. |
| Footsies | Did you know? It's possible for a couple to flirt by touching each other's legs. |
| Gerbilling | Anurban legend about a sexual practice purportedly conducted. It was made popular bySouth Park. |
| Global Orgasm for Peace | Oh yeah, the end of human conflict just turns me on... |
| Hamster zona-free ovum test | A test – sometimes called a "hamster test" – involving humansemen, hamstereggs and apetri dish. |
| Human penis size | Scientific data on average size, racial variations, surgical enlargement andurban legends. |
| Koro | A condition where one (mistakenly) believes that his or her genitals are slowly disappearing. |
| Lithopedion | The rare condition of an unbornfetus calcifying. |
| Male pregnancy | For now, it's just aseahorse thing, but... |
| Napoleon's penis | (Allegedly) cut off after his death and, among other things, displayed at a museum inManhattan. |
| National Masturbation Day | Not related to theweek, and certainly not related to themonth. |
| Parasitic twin | A medical condition where one of twoconjoined twins lacks essential organs and must rely on the other for survival, often leeching its blood. An especially rare variant of this,fetus in fetu, involves one partially formed fetus developing within the body of the other. |
| Persistent genital arousal disorder | Not as funny as it may sound. |
| Post-coital tristesse | "But after the enjoyment of sensual pleasure is passed, the greatest sadness follows."–Baruch Spinoza |
| Puppy pregnancy syndrome | A condition found in remote regions ofIndia in which people believe they have conceived a puppy shortly after being bitten by adog. |
| Scrotal inflation | For real now, boys: DO NOT try this at home. You can put your life at risk while doing it. |
| Self-inflicted caesarean section | A harrowing practice, verified to have occurred at least five times. |
| Sexual headache | Not the one that wives pretend to have to dissuade their husbands; this type happens during the act. |
| Sleep sex | A form ofparasomnia (similar tosleepwalking) that causes people to engage in sexual acts while they are asleep. Not to be confused withsomnophilia. |
| Soggy biscuit | Don't finish last, whatever you do. |
| Vorarephilia | Notexactly cannibalism, but... |
| Zhang Jingsheng | A sexologist known by the nickname "Dr. Sex" who enthusiastically advocated social Darwinism, scientific racism, eugenics, and a "Big Breast Renaissance". |
| Zombie pornography | Modern reincarnation of necrophilia. |
| Elisabeth Anderson Sierra | Diagnosed withhyperlactation syndrome, her generous donations of excess breast milk have earned her the title of "Milk Goddess". |
| Jaxon Buell | A child born with only 20% of a brain. He lived for 5 years despite doctors' expectations that he would only live for 1 year. |
| Jeanne Calment | A Frenchwoman with the longest verified human lifespan in recorded history. She was 122 at the time of her death. |
| Jo Cameron | A Scottish woman who feels no physical or psychological pain due to a rare genetic mutation. |
| Legrand G. Capers | The only person ever to witness a woman being impregnated by a bullet. |
| Stubbins Ffirth | An American trainee doctor who went tounusual lengths in his quest to prove thatyellow fever is not contagious. |
| Phineas Gage | A 19th-century construction worker who survived a three-foot-long (0.91 m) tamping iron going through his skull. His resultant behavioral changes have made him an important figure in the development ofneuroscience. |
| Genie | A feral child who was neglected by her father and was locked in a room for the first 13 years of her life. |
| Karen Greenlee | Unrepentant serialnecrophile open to interviews on the subject, who came to attention for stealing a hearse during a funeral. |
| James Harrison | An Australian man whose 1,173 blood donations have saved over 2.5 million babies. |
| Abby and Brittany Hensel | Conjoined twins with separate heads but joined bodies. |
| Krista and Tatiana Hogan | Craniopagus twins with a a "thalamus bridge" which connects their two thalami together. |
| Paul Karason | An American man known for havingblue skin. |
| "Benjaman Kyle" | Found naked and unconscious outside a Burger King dumpster (where he derived his new alias from), he doesn't remember 20 years of his life, or how he ended up in Georgia from Colorado. |
| Eugene Landy | A psychologist who developed a form of 24-hour therapy and later became business partners with one of his many celebrity patients,Brian Wilson ofthe Beach Boys. |
| Hans Langseth | A guy who had the longest beard recorded in history. |
| Robert Liston | A 19th-century Scottish surgeon who, among other things, performed what has been described as "the only operation in history with a 300 percent mortality rate". |
| List of individual body parts | Contains, among other things,Galileo's middle finger. |
| Barry Marshall | A doctor who, against the consensus of mainstream medicine, drank a vial of bacterial culture to prove thatstomach ulcers were caused by bacteria rather than stress, spicy foods, and too much acid as was believed at the time. He won theNobel Prize for it, too. |
| Alexis St. Martin | A 19th-century French-Canadian fur trader who survived a gunshot wound and was left with a hole in his stomach, which allowed revolutionary experiments ondigestion to be conducted. |
| Donald Mastick | A man who accidentally ateplutonium, leading to one of the worst cases ofbad breath. |
| Lina Medina | A Peruvian girl who gave birth to a son when she was five years old, becoming the youngest human mother on record. |
| Armin Meiwes | Wanting to be eaten is one thing, but actually having it done to you is quite another. |
| Billy Milligan | A man with 24 personalities, popularized by the 1981 bookThe Minds of Billy Milligan. |
| Wenceslao Moguel | Accused of participating in theMexican Revolution, he was sentenced to death, survived his execution, and lived for another 6 decades. |
| Blanche Monnier | A French woman who was locked in an attic for 25 years because her parents disapproved of her choice of suitor. |
| Mariam Nabatanzi | A Ugandan woman who had given birth to 44 children by the age of 36. |
| Hamilton Naki | A Black South African doctor who participated in the firstheart transplant surgery and was later censored by theApartheid regime. |
| Chandre Oram | A man in India with a 13-inch (33 cm)tail. |
| Adam Rainer | The only person known to be both adwarf and agiant. |
| S.M. (patient) | A woman with the inability to feel fear due to damage to the amygdalae. |
| Tarrare | A Frenchman with an insatiable appetite, who made a show out of his ability to eat just about anything. Including, allegedly, a toddler. |
| Lakshmi Tatma | An Indian girl born with four arms and four legs, fitting to her name as she was named aftera Hindu goddess with four arms. |
| Mary Toft | An English woman who hoaxed doctors into believing that she had given birth torabbits. |
| Robert Wadlow | An American man who, at 8 ft 11.1 in (2.72 m), was the tallest verified person in human history. |
| Louis Jolyon West | An American psychiatrist known most for his work inMKULTRA while employed by theCIA, which included accidentally killing an elephant withLSD. Also appointed to interrogateJack Ruby and was an arch-enemy of theChurch of Scientology. |
| Alice in Wonderland syndrome | Distortions of perception that may include one's surroundings appearing too large or too small, faint noises sounding loud, or time slowing to a trickle. |
| Anton syndrome | People who are blind but convinced they can see. |
| Bananadine | Exactly how psychedelic are those dried banana peels? |
| Bicameral mentality | Neuroscientific hypothesis that the human mind before theBronze Age was split into two discrete components, a speaking mind and obeying mind. |
| Capgras delusion | When you're sure a friend or loved one is an impostor. |
| Cortical homunculus | A distorted representation of the human body based on areas of the brain dedicated to processing motor functions for different body parts. |
| Cotard's syndrome | Suffered by people, very much alive, who believe they're dead. |
| Conversion disorder | Blindness and similar disabilities caused byanxiety. |
| Cute aggression | The reason why people want to squeeze cute things without harm. |
| Dancing mania | Unknown forces cause large groups of people to dance hysterically until dropping from exhaustion in multiple incidents in Europe from the 13th to 17th centuries. |
| Dissociative fugue | You black out and when you wake up years have passed, you're in a different city, you have a new name and have lived a different life while you were unconscious. Also known as dissociative fugue or psychogenic fugue. |
| Electromagnetic hypersensitivity | For those allergic toWi-Fi. |
| Encopresis | Voluntary or involuntary defecation in persons who aretoilet trained (older than 4 years of age.) |
| Exploding head syndrome | Ever woken up after an hour or two of sleep thinking you've just heard a massive explosion? |
| Expressive aphasia | You know when you have a word on tip of your tongue but you just can't remember it? It's that, but with every word. |
| False memory | Forming of false memories; sometimes leads to thousands of people having the same false memory. |
| Foreign accent syndrome | A rare medical condition whereby sufferers speak their native language with a foreign accent. |
| Fregoli delusion | The belief that different people are actually one person in disguise. |
| Geophagia | Eat dirt, pal. |
| Impossible color | Supposed colors that do not appear in ordinary visual functioning. |
| Jumping Frenchmen of Maine | LikeTourette syndrome, but more Gallic. |
| Klüver–Bucy syndrome | One specific kind of brain damage causes hypersexuality and a desire to put random things in your mouth. Named after two doctors who gave psychotropic drugs to lobotomized monkeys. |
| Mariko Aoki phenomenon | A Japanese expression referring to an urge to defecate that is suddenly felt after entering bookstores. |
| Paris syndrome | Being clinically disappointed byParis. Particularly common among Japanese tourists. Not to be confused withJerusalem syndrome orStockholm syndrome. |
| Rosenhan experiment | An experiment involving certifiably sane mental patients. |
| Somatoparaphrenia | A type ofdelusion in which a sufferer denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of the body. |
| Stendhal syndrome | A psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art or natural beauty. |
| Tanganyika laughter epidemic | What happens when contagious laughter becomes an actual epidemic. |
| Target fixation | To become so fixated on an object you are trying to avoid that you collide with it. |
| Tip of the tongue | What was this article about again... Wait, I think I am just about to remember... |
| Truman Show delusion | Those afflicted feel they are being watched all the time by a television audience, like Jim Carrey's character in the 1998 movieThe Truman Show. |
| Urophagia | The consumption ofurine.Not always for survival reasons. |
| Visual release hallucinations | Millions of perfectly sane people are having freakish hallucinations – and just not admitting it. |
| Zero stroke | An allegedmental disorder that caused patients to write endless rows ofzeroes. |
| Cherophobia | Fear of happiness |
| Chromophobia | Fear of colors |
| Coprophobia | Fear of feces or even defecation, and possibly enjoyingconstipation |
| Dentophobia | Fear of dentists |
| Emetophobia | Fear of vomiting |
| Globophobia | Fear of balloons or balloons popping |
| Genuphobia | Fear of knees or the act of kneeling |
| Koumpounophobia | Fear of buttons |
| Mageiricophobia | Fear of cooking |
| Nomophobia | Fear of being without yourmobile phone |
| Numerophobia | Fear of numbers |
| Osmophobia | Fear of odors and smells |
| Phallophobia | Fear of the penis |
| Philophobia | Fear of love |
| Phobophobia | Fear of having a phobia |
| Pogonophobia | Fear of beards |
| Submechanophobia | Fear of submerged man-made objects |
| Technophobia | Fear of computers and internet |
| Telephobia | Fear of making or answering telephone calls |
| Adactylidium | A mite with a very unusual life cycle. |
| Animals in space | An annotated list of the various animals used in space programs. |
| Animal attack | Not kidding: death by beavers, bunnies, squirrels, crocodiles, and other creatures you should not have as pets. |
| Anting (behavior) | Not recommended for humans. |
| Apophallation | Are you a slug and can't extract your penis? Amputate and change your gender. |
| Beaver-engineered dam in the Czech Republic | A family of beavers has saved theCzech government about $1.2 million by doing what they do best and restoring awetland ecosystem. |
| Bee removal | Removal of bees. |
| Birds Aren't Real | Think about it, have you ever even seen a bird? |
| Blast fishing | Catch a lot of fish at once by blowing up a lake. |
| Boiling frog | Despite the metaphor, they won't really sit there and let themselves boil to death. |
| Candiru | Barbed fish allegedly attracted to, lodged in, and extracted from human penises. |
| Carcinisation | Crustaceans may evolve how they wish, but eventually, it all comes back to crab shape. |
| Common Surinam toad | The mother's back is where the eggs are embedded and where they develop. |
| Conservation-induced extinction | The extinction of highly endangered parasites at the hands of conservationists. |
| Cat–dog relationship | For centuries the two most popular house pets have been fighting like, well, cats and dogs. |
| Cymothoa exigua | A parasitic crustacean that, when female (they arehermaphroditic), attaches to and then destroys a fish's tongue, hooks itself to the remaining stub and becomes the fish's new tongue. |
| Depopulation of cockroaches in post-Soviet states | A great ecological problem indeed complete with fourteen references in Russian. |
| Dolly (sheep) | The first evermammal which wascloned via an adultsomatic cell. |
| Echinoecus pentagonus | A parasitic crab which lives in the rectum of a sea urchin. At least it's rent-controlled. |
| Epomis | A deceptive beetle larva that entices its own predators by feigning prey-like movements in order to eat its predator. |
| Eufriesea purpurata | Anorchid bee that seeks and vigorously collectspesticides. |
| Eunice aphroditois | "Armed with sharp teeth, it is known to attack with such speeds that its prey is sometimes sliced in half." As if being a three-metre (9 ft 10 in) worm were not impressive enough. |
| Fat-tailed sheep | BBL... BTL? |
| Goblin shark | Indeed, a monster from the deepest oceans. |
| Goldfish swallowing | A fad that started in American colleges in the 1930s. |
| Grey go-away-bird | An very unsociable species. |
| Hallucinogenic fish | No, the fish are not trippin'; they will cause hallucinations if ingested. It is not known if hallucinations will occur if one fish consumes another. |
| Hebrew character | Actually a species of moth. |
| Hotwheels sisyphus | A ground spider, sadly not known for rolling a toy car up a plastic ramp again and again to watch it go down. |
| Hurricane Shark | The meteorological equivalent ofBigfoot. (Except it's real. Kind of. Probably. At least once.) |
| Israel-related animal conspiracy theories | Has an animal looked suspicious? It was probablyIsrael. |
| Jenny Haniver | A grotesque-lookingsea monster made from the corpse of aray. |
| Lioconcha hieroglyphica | A type of clam with a shell covered in hieroglyph-like markings. |
| List of animals displaying homosexual behavior | Everything from salmon to seagulls to dragonflies. |
| List of animal sounds | Snaildo "Munch, crunch", Squirrel do "squeak". |
| List of animals awarded human credentials | Mostly due to pranks pulled ondiploma mills. |
| London Underground mosquito | A species ofmosquito that lives in underground railways. |
| Love dart | Hermaphroditic snails playCupid. |
| Lyall's wren | Made extinct by feral cats, possibly the offspring of one pregnant female. |
| Metoecus paradoxus | A beetle with - as prophet of our ageMegan Thee Stallion put it - eyelashes "on fleek". |
| Nightingale excrement as facial | Droppings of a nightingale variety used in facials. Some claim that it helps with acne. Project Medicine states that the references arenot MEDRS. (MEDical Reliable Source) |
| Orbiting Frog Otolith | A NASA frog experiment, sending two bullfrogs into space to test their sense of balance. |
| Paracerceis sculpta | A species ofisopod that has some males that mimic females and others that mimic juveniles, allowing them to mate without the alpha males realising what is going on behind their backs. |
| Pasilalinic-sympathetic compass | Telepathic communication is not possible in snails no matter how far apart they may be. Nothing else has been ruled out. |
| Penis fencing | A |
| Pit of despair | An attempt to give monkeys depression. |
| Polar bear jail | For polar bear criminals. |
| Prostitution among animals | The oldest profession reaches the animal kingdom. |
| Recreational drug use in animals | Alcohol in particular, but also substances extracted from other animals. |
| Rotating locomotion in living systems | Why don't animals have wheels? |
| Quahog parasite unknown | A not-so-freakin' sweet single-celled protist parasite. |
| Shortarse feelerfish | Bathymicrops brevianalis is a fish so named for its short anal fins –brevianalis meaning "short anus". |
| Supernumerary body part | Having an extra body part, be it as simple as aneleventh finger or as extreme as asecond head! |
| Tasselled wobbegong | "With several records of apparently unprovoked attacks on people, the tasselled wobbegong has a reputation beyond other wobbegongs for aggressive behavior." |
| Thagomizer | A feature ofStegosaurus anatomy named after aFar Side comic strip. |
| Traumatic insemination | A form of mating in invertebrates in which the male stabs the female in the abdomen with his penis, and injects his sperm through the wound. |
| Trout tickling | Coochy coo! |
| Uraba lugens | It's called the mad hatterpillar for a reason... |
| Wells and Wellington affair | A university dropout and a high school teacher stage a herpetological coup d'état. |
| Worm charming | No spade? No worries! There's a better way to get hold of earthworms. |
| Bonsai Kitten | The practice of growing small jar-shaped kittens caused controversy years after it was revealed to be a hoax. |
| Cat burning | A form of entertainment in the Middle Ages, sometimes participated in by royalty. |
| Cats That Look Like Hitler | Kitlers exist, live with it. |
| Demon Cat | A cat that supposedly haunts government buildings inWashington, D.C. |
| Odd-eyed cat | One of thenational treasures ofTurkey. |
| Pittsburgh refrigerator cat | A "breed" of cat that lived in refrigerators that people actually believed existed. |
| Popular cat names | Cat names, ranked by popularity. |
| Polydactyl cat | Cats with extraordinary numbers of toes. |
| Ray cat | A proposed genetically engineered breed that glows in presence of nuclear radiation. |
| Tsavo Man-Eaters | O-oh, here they come... a famous case of killer lions from the 1890s. |
| Cow tipping | Takes up to 14 people to make it happen. |
| Craven Heifer | The largest cow ever shown in England. |
| Hardware disease | A condition in bovines caused by ingesting stray bits of metal. |
| Lily Flagg | A Jersey cow that produced record amounts of butter and got a sizable neighborhood named for her. |
| Turra Coo | An insurance protest gone too far. |
| Ubre Blanca | Fidel Castro's favourite cow that produced 113 liters in one day, used as a symbol of superior agriculture under communism. When she died, a marble statue was erected in her memory. |
| Cannibalism in poultry | See:tastes like chicken. |
| Chick sexer | A person whose job is to determine the sex of chicken hatchlings. |
| Chicken eyeglasses | Tiny spectacles for chicks, to stop them from seeing red. |
| Chicken Dance,Chicken (dance) | There is a huge difference. |
| Chicken gun | Valuable for the mitigation of damage frombird strikes. The chicken carcass must be thawed first, though. |
| Chicken hypnotism | Have you ever wanted to hypnotize a chicken? If not, why not? |
| Chicken or the egg | Which came first? |
| Chicken powered nuclear bomb | A British project to lay nuclear mines in West Germany during the Cold War that were planned to be kept warm by live chickens. |
| Empathy in chickens | Have some empathy when eating crunchy chicken nuggets. |
| Mike the Headless Chicken | Survived 18 months without a head. |
| Tastes like chicken | But baked, grilled, or fried? |
| Arctic ground squirrel | The squirrel that freezes itself solid. |
| Electrical disruptions caused by squirrels | Two squirrels on a wire... |
| Squirrel fishing | A sport of skill and patience. |
| Squirrels on college campuses | Squirrels are noted to be prominent fauna there. |
| Ambergris | Do you really want to know what your fancy perfume was made from? |
| Berserk llama syndrome | The result of being too friendly with llamas. |
| Deer penis | It is said to enhance sexual potency in men and was banned by the Chinese government from the2008 Olympics. |
| Diving horse | A short-lived attraction during the 1880s. |
| The dog ate my homework | Instead of a pathetic excuse for an article, an article about a pathetic excuse. |
| Domesticated silver fox | Soviet Russia subsidizes the breeding of silver foxes. |
| Exploding whale | The next time a whale washes on shore in one Oregon county, the authorities will leave the dynamite at home. |
| Fainting goat | A breed of goat whose muscles freeze for about 10 seconds when it is startled. |
| Flying primate hypothesis | Hypothesis thatmegabats areprimates like us. |
| Globster | Blobs of organic matter found washed up on beaches, which are frequently as mysterious as they are disgusting. |
| Guided rat | Implanted electrodes let researchers "steer the animal over an obstacle course, making it twist, turn and even jump on demand". |
| House hippo | The world's biggest domestic pest. If you can believe that. |
| Human | An article that reads as if non-humans wrote it. |
| Husum Red Pied | A pig bred to look like theflag of Denmark, to circumvent prohibition of the flag. |
| New Guinea singing dog | Not only that, but it climbs trees too! |
| Overtoun Bridge | A bridge from which dogs keep leaping to their death. |
| Panda pornography | Pornographic movies created to achieve sexual arousal forGiant pandas, which have been proven to be unaffected by the popular drugViagra. |
| Quokka | An Australian animal which has developed a habit of posing for selfies with humans. |
| Revival of the woolly mammoth | Plans to clone thewoolly mammoth and re-introduce them toSiberia. |
| Rhinogradentia | A fictitious order of mammal invented bya German zoologist with a sense of humour. |
| Street dogs in Moscow | Some of them have figured out how to commute using the subway system. |
| Weasel war dance | The behavior of extremely excited ferrets who are enjoying themselves too much. |
| What Is It Like to Be a Bat? | Life’s most important questions. |
| Whale fall | The ecological consequences associated with a dead whale sinking to the seafloor. |
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| 52-hertz whale | Dubbed the "world's loneliest whale", it vocalizes at a frequency used by no known whale species. |
| Anchorage White Raven | A bird from Alaska that used to eat tater tots and toast, fight over ice cream, and disassemble street lamps. |
| Adwaita | Possibly the oldest creature of modern times, this 255 year-old tortoise was the former pet ofRobert Clive of theBritish East India Company. |
| Ken Allen | Orangutan nicknamed the "Hairy Houdini" for his many escapes. |
| Andy | A footless goose who wore sneakers as prosthesis and was tragically murdered. |
| Benson | A fish. A big fish. Called Benson. |
| Bubbles | Michael Jackson's chimpanzee, who used human toilet facilities,moonwalked, and (allegedly) attempted suicide. |
| Casper | A cat famed for traveling on a bus aroundPlymouth, England. |
| Clever Hans | A horse that allegedly knew arithmetic and could read in German. |
| Cocaine Bear | A bear found dead in the Tennessee wilderness, having gone through a drug smuggler's dropped bag of cocaine. Inspired a2023 film (though in that one, the bear didn't just drop dead, as there'd be no plot that way). |
| Conan | Javier Milei's dog, cloned after his death to create puppy political advisors. Milei claimed he and Conan met in a previous life as a Roman gladiator and lion. |
| Domino sparrow | Unlucky sparrow who dropped some 23,000 dominos and got killed for that. |
| Dusty the Klepto Kitty | Redefining the term "cat burglar". |
| Enumclaw horse sex case | An unfortunate case of ahorse riding a man, as opposed to a man riding a horse. |
| Filho da Puta | Um nome infeliz... |
| Fungie | Ireland's favouritedolphin. |
| Gacek | One classy cat who became one ofSzczecin's top tourist attractions in 2020. |
| Gef | A mongoose that talked (allegedly). |
| George | A lobster weighing 20 pounds (9.1 kg), estimated to be 140 years old. |
| Grape-kun | AHumboldt penguin who gained worldwide fame after apparently falling in love with a cutout of an anime character. |
| Grumpy Cat | Unfortunately, this cat couldn't turn that frown upside down. |
| Hachikō | A well-known story of a Japanese dog that will make you cry by the end of it. |
| Harambe | A gorilla killed to prevent it killing a child it was saving. Became a meme. |
| Henry the Hexapus | An octopus missing two arms due to an unfortunate birth defect. |
| Hoover the talking seal | Hoover. A seal. Which talked. |
| Jack | A Baboon who took over for his disabled owner as an employee of the Cape government railway. |
| Jackie | A dalmatian dog who was taught by his owner to do theNazi salute, long beforeCount Dankula did. |
| Jeremy | A left-coiledsnail who became famous after a campaign to find another left-coiled snail so he could mate. |
| Joe the Pigeon | Was put on death row for being American, but later acquitted and released. Named afterthe then President-elect. |
| Jonathan | Oldest known living terrestrial animal in the world (if it weren'tAdwaita). He made the reverse of the 5p ofSaint Helena. What have you done? |
| Khanzir | Possibly the world'sloneliest pig. Even more lonely during theswine flu outbreak. |
| Lion of Gripsholm Castle | What happens when you tell a taxidermist who doesn't know what a lion is to stuff and mount a lion. |
| Lonesome George | The last known individual of the speciesPinta Island tortoise. He was known as the rarest creature in the world. |
| Long Boi | An "exceptionally tall" duck that lived on theUniversity of York campus before disappearing in 2024. |
| Mayor Max II | The world's cutest mayor-for-life creature: aGolden Retriever. |
| Mike the Headless Chicken | A rooster that lived for 18 months with his head cut off. |
| Ming | A ~500-year-old clam that was killed when scientists opened its shell to see how old it was. |
| Moo Deng | The internet's favorite baby hippo, who reached such a level of popularity that her zoo had to limit the amount of time visitors could see her enclosure. |
| Muhamed (horse) | "The most intelligent of the horses", which could allegedly read and spell in German and extract cube roots. |
| Nim Chimpsky | Achimpanzee, subject of long-running studies intoanimal language acquisition, named punningly for linguistNoam Chomsky. |
| Barack Obama | A horse named after the United States President that was euthanized at his big race. |
| Major General Sir Nils Olav, Baron of the Bouvet Islands | A high-ranking military officer of Norway who happens to live in the penguin exhibit at Edinburgh Zoo. |
| Oscar the Cat | Ahospice cat profiled in theNew England Journal of Medicine for his purported ability to predict when terminally ill patients would die. |
| Owen and Mzee | Hippo and tortoise that befriended each other after the2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. |
| Paul | A now-deceased psychic octopus who could predict the winner offootball games, notably during the2010 FIFA World Cup. |
| Pep | A dog jokingly sentenced to a life sentence in prison to help improve prisoners' morale- though many publications took the sentence literally. |
| Potoooooooo | Actually, it's pronounced "potatoes". |
| Penelope (platypus) | A platypus who faked a pregnancy and escaped from theBronx Zoo. |
| Raccoon of Kherson | A zoo animal becomes a prisoner of war after theliberation of Kherson. |
| Ravens of the Tower of London | Ravens used assoldiers in theTower of London. |
| River Thames whale | In 2006, a Northern Bottlenose swam intoLondon and on to the front pages of the British newspapers. |
| Scarlett's Magic | Given the Key to the City of Corona, California for being the world's tallest and longest cat. |
| Sergeant Reckless | A horse that held an official rank in the US military, fought in the Korean War and participated in an amphibious landing. |
| Snippy | Cattle mutilation is one thing, but a horse found missing all of its flesh above the shoulders is quite another. |
| Stubbs | A cat who was the mayor of an Alaskan town for nearly 20 years. |
| Tamworth Two | Twopigs who, in 1998, escaped an abattoir in England and attracted media attraction. Thanks to a newspaper, they were never made into bacon, ham or sausages. |
| Tillamook Cheddar | The world's most successful and widely shown animal artist. |
| Timothy | A tortoise that was present during the bombardment ofSevastopol during theCrimean War in 1854 and survived until 2004. |
| Tombili | A cat famously pictured looking chill on the streets of Istanbul, who is now immortalised by a statue on the site. |
| Unsinkable Sam | A cat that has survived the sinking of three ships. |
| Vacanti mouse | A mouse with a human ear on its back. |
| Whitney Chewston | A dog that gained fame due to having the manner of ahomophobic white woman. |
| William Windsor | Acashmere goat who served as alance corporal in the 1st Battalion, theRoyal Welsh, aninfantrybattalion of theBritish Army. |
| Wojtek | A soldier of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of thePolish II Corps who also happened to be aSyrian Brown Bear. He enjoyed beer and cigarettes. |
| Abul-Abbas | An Asian elephant given to Carolingian emperorCharlemagne by the Abbasid caliphHarun al-Rashid. |
| Hanno | An Indian elephant that was a gift from the Portuguese kingManuel I to the pope in the 16th century. |
| Jumbo | An elephant with gigantism and legendary circus attraction, who gave his name to large things everywhere. |
| Lin Wang | A Taiwanese elephant made famous for his participation in theSecond Sino-Japanese War. |
| Mary | Makes the phrase "hung like an elephant" take on a whole new meaning. |
| Osama bin Laden | Terrorized the jungle of Assam. He was eventually shot, butas with his namesake there are those who question the official story of his death. |
| Topsy | An elephant that was electrocuted, as the event was filmed by theEdison Manufacturing Company. |
| Aha ha | Alan Partridge's favorite wasp? |
| Anophthalmus hitleri | Rare blind beetle named afterAdolf Hitler, poached by collectors of Hitler memorabilia. |
| Aptostichus barackobamai | Atrapdoor spider named after former U.S. PresidentBarack Obama. |
| Aptostichus stephencolberti | Another trapdoor spider, this time named afterStephen Colbert. Naturally, because he asked for it. |
| Bill Gates' flower fly | Aflower fly,Eristalis gatesi, named afterBill Gates. |
| Colon | Someone pulled this beetle name out of their butt. Includes the glorious speciesColon rectum. |
| Calinaga buddha | Commonly known as "the freak". One can only wonder what type of freaky shenanigans this Butterfly gets up to. |
| Funny (spider) | The species 'F. valentine' is supposedly "an arbitrary combination of letters". |
| Gaga | If you thought naming organisms after celebrities wasn't overdone,Lady Gaga has an entire plant genus. See also theparasitoid waspAleiodes gaga and the extinct genusGagadon. |
| Gamergate | "Actually, it's about ethics in ant breeding..." |
| Harryplax | A genus of crab named in part after thetitular character of theHarry Potter franchise. The sole species of this genus is named afterthe coldly hostile, yet emotion-concealing character from the same franchise. |
| Kimjongilia | A flower named after North Korean leaderKim Jong-il by a Japanese botanist. |
| Kinda baboon | Is it a baboon? Well, kinda. |
| Madidi titi monkey | A species of monkey that was officially named after theGoldenPalace.comonline casino. |
| Mini | A genus of tiny Madagascar frogs containing 3 species:Mini ature,Mini mum, andMini scule. |
| Mothers against decapentaplegic | Actually, it's a protein. |
| Mountain chicken | A type of frog that lives near streams. |
| Neopalpa donaldtrumpi | A moth remarkable for itsdistinctly orange head and small genitalia. |
| Pachygnatha zappa | A spider whose abdominal markings resemblea very famous mustache. |
| Parapropalaehoplophorus | An ancient armadillo named afteran ancient armadillo that was named afteranother ancient armadillo that was named afteranother ancient armadillo. My head hurts. |
| Pikachurin | Anextracellular matrix-likeretinal protein named afterPikachu. |
| Setaceous Hebrew character | A European moth with wing markings bearing a chance resemblance to a letter in theHebrew alphabet. |
| Covered smut False loose smut Loose smut | You may snicker now, but if you had any of these, I guarantee you wouldn't be laughing much. |
| Sonic hedgehog protein | A protein in the vertebrate hedgehog family that was officially named afterSega's video game characterSonic the Hedgehog. |
| Spiralix heisenbergi | A freshwater snail named afterWalter White's alter-ego, Heisenberg. It is thought to be in danger, but itis the danger. |
| Spongiforma squarepantsii | A type of mushroom named afterSpongeBob SquarePants. |
| Strigiphilus garylarsoni | A bitinglouse named for cartoonistGary Larson ofFar Side fame. |
| Synalpheus pinkfloydi | A species of snapping shrimp named after the famousEnglish rock band. |
| Thaumatodryinus tuukkaraski | A wasp named afterNHL goaltenderTuukka Rask, as both are acrobatic and have a killer glove hand. |
| Zombie taxon | Paleontology of the undead. |
| Zoosphaerium darthvaderi | Named afterDarth Vader, this pill millipede has an anal shield with a "pronounced bell shape"! |
| Zyzyxia lundellii Zyzzyzus warreni | The last plant name and animal name in the dictionary, respectively. |
| Bialbero di Casorzo | A cherry tree that grows upon a mulberry tree in Italy. |
| Chandelier Tree | A 300-foot-tall (91 m) redwood with a giant hole cut through the middle for cars to drive through. |
| Echinopsis lageniformis | A cactus the Germans callFrauenglück, or "Women's Joy", because, well...just look at it. |
| Eisenhower Tree | A tree on a golf course that became famous afterthe President of the United States tried and failed to have it taken down. |
| Fuck Tree | The perfect spot for gay cruising. |
| Golfballia ambusta | Can a burnt golf ball technically be considered a fungus? |
| Hungry grass | Me: "Ooooohh I'm so hungry" the patch of grass that makes you hungry when you stand on it: |
| Mimosa pudica | A plant that rapidly closes or folds its leaves after they are touched. |
| Moon tree | Trees planted from seeds that were taken into space byApollo 14. |
| Nepenthes lowii | The toilet bowl of the plant world: a pitcher plant that mostly prefers tree shrew poop. |
| Old Man of the Lake | A 30-foot (9 m) tree stump that has been floating around Oregon's Crater Lake since at least 1896. |
| Olympic oaks | Gifts from theFührer. Some are still alive. |
| Pando | An 80,000 year old quaking aspen colony that is believed to be one of the oldest and heaviest organisms on the planet. |
| Plant arithmetic | Plants can do math! |
| Plant rights | If other living beings likehumans andanimals can have rights, then why not plants? |
| Pomato | It's bothpotato andtomato! |
| Radiotrophic fungus | A type of fungus that thrives in radioactive environments. Some species have even been discovered inChernobyl! |
| Tendril perversion | A geometric phenomenon sometimes observed in helical structures like plant tendrils and telephone handset cords. |
| Tom Cruise Purple | A cannabis strain that nearly got into legal trouble with its Scientologist celebrity namesake. |
| Tree of Knowledge (Australia) | Killed by ignorance. |
| Tree of Ténéré | A solitary acacia that was once the most isolated tree on Earth before being run over by a drunken Libyan truck driver. |
| Tree That Owns Itself | Its owner loved it so much that he granted it ownership of itself. |
| 300-page iPhone bill | AT&T Mobility's billing policy for the first iPhone gave a real sense of how much money was being wasted... on paper and printer ink. |
| Abraham Lincoln's patent | For lifting boats over shoals. Lincoln is the only US president who held a patent. |
| Alan MacMasters hoax | For ten years Wikipedia listed a fake article about the man who supposedly invented the electric toaster. Before it was taken down, multiple people and press outlets wrongly reported that an entirely fictional man called Alan MacMasters had invented the electric toaster in the 19th century. |
| Antikythera mechanism | Ananalog computer built inAncient Greece. |
| Bad Dragon | Products that put the "fantasy" in sexual fantasy. |
| Baby cage | The pre-War way to get your baby some fresh air if you live in a high-rise apartment. Used by none other thanEleanor Roosevelt. |
| Bild Lilli doll | A German doll that was the main inspiration forBarbie and is now considered its "grandmother". |
| Billy Possum | When Taft tried to get his own Teddy Bear. |
| Blåhaj | Stuffed shark, IKEA bestseller, transgender icon. |
| Brown note | The laxativeinfrasonic frequency that doesn't exist. |
| Centennial Light | Alight bulb that has been burning nonstop for 124 years. |
| Chindōgu | The practice of inventing solutions to everyday problems that just make the problem worse. |
| Clock of the Long Now | A clock that, once completed, should be able to keep time for 10,000 years. |
| Clocky | Analarm clock that hides from its owner. |
| Concealing objects in a book | Hopefully you weren't planning to read it before you hollowed it out. |
| Digesting Duck | Or"Canard Digérateur", anautomaton built to simulate a duck eating, digesting, and excreting. |
| Digital sundial | Unlike ananalog sundial, a clock that indicates the current time with numerals formed by the sunlight striking it. |
| Dreamachine | A device made with alight bulb and arecord turntable that reportedly induceslucid dreaming. (And you thought the makers ofDie Another Day made it up. There's still no news about invisibleAston Martin V12 Vanquishes.) |
| Electronic voice phenomenon | Alleged spiritual voices heard inwhite noise and radio interference. |
| Friendly Floatees spill | Rubber ducks and their friends who went on a long,long journey. |
| Gun-powered mousetrap | Patented in 1882. According to its inventor, it can also be used as abooby trap to kill attempted home invaders. |
| Hitler teapot | Some people thought that thisJCPenney teapot resembledthe famous dictator. |
| Marvin Heemeyer | Why it's always a bad idea to put the guy next door out of business if he has a ten-ton armor-plated bulldozer in his garage. |
| History of perpetual motion machines | The concept has eluded and baffled the greatest minds for thousands of years – and will continue to elude anyone who tries to build one. |
| Hitachi Magic Wand | Its manufacturers continue to claim that it's just a massager for health purposes and not, you know, the world's best-knownsex toy. |
| I-Doser | Like taking drugs through your ears. |
| Jibba Jabber | The hot new stress toy where you simulate shaking a baby to death. |
| Klerksdorp sphere | Spheres with three parallel grooves dated to be three billion years old... Evidence of ancient intelligent life? An unusual natural phenomenon? Who knows... |
| Zbigniew Libera | Creator of theLego Concentration Camp. |
| List of inventors killed by their own invention | Perilous parachutes, lethal lighthouses and murderous motorcycles! |
| Love chair | Made to allowa fat king to have sex with two women at the same time. |
| Mengenlehreuhr | You'll have to read between the lights to see the time. |
| Moo box | Cow in a can. |
| Mosquito laser | A bug zapper with a difference. |
| Museum of Failure | A collection of sorts focusing on... well, failed things. Notably includes theNokia N-Gage,Bic's woman-only pens, andGoogle Glass. |
| My Friend Cayla | That doll is a spy! |
| One red paperclip | A man's small piece of metal turns out to be worth more than expected. |
| Parking chair | Using household objects to reserve parking spaces. |
| Pigeon photography | Pigeons were used by the Germans for aerial surveillance in World War I, and apparently also in World War II. Not to forget the CIA's own pigeon camera. |
| Predictions of the end of Wikipedia | All good things must come to an end...... but not for now. |
| Project Cybersyn | Chilean robo-socialism control chamber invented by aBrit with a gigantic beard. |
| Pythagorean cup | When the cup is filled beyond a certain point, it will empty itself. |
| Quartz crisis | Not a comic book story arc, but the upheaval in watchmaking caused by the introduction of quartz watches. |
| Radio hat | A strange-looking (and strange-sounding) piece of headgear. |
| Royal Mail rubber band | One billion are used every year and often seen littering the streets of UK cities. |
| Russian floating nuclear power station | Self-contained, low-capacity, floating nuclear power plants. |
| Sony timer | Rumours that Sony uses a particularly aggressive form ofplanned obsolescence continue to this day. |
| Splayd | 33.3% spoon, 33.3% knife, 33.3% fork. |
| Tempest prognosticator | Meteorology by frightenedannelid. |
| The Thing | A non-electronic Soviet listening device given to the U.S. Ambassador and proudly displayed in his study. |
| Turbo encabulator | A device whose sole function is to expose technological ignorance. |
| Uncanny valley | How to measure your emotional response toandroids. |
| Useless machine | In most cases, toys for adults. |
| Vin Mariani | A drink made fromcocaine and consumed byThomas Edison,Pope Leo XIII,Ulysses S. Grant and French prime ministerJules Méline. |
| Violence and Lego | Fortunately, not actual violence, but rather an observed increase of weapon bricks within the toy brand. |
| Wrap rage | Ever been driven mad by packaging that just won't open? |
| Xianxingzhe | A Chinese robot, according to the Japanese, that will save its country from corporate capitalism with its crotch cannon. |
| Committee to End Pay Toilets in America | A 1970s organization whose campaign was to endpay toilets in the U.S.; its newsletter was humorously titled theFree Toilet Paper. |
| Darlie | Formerly known as 'Darkie', racist toothpaste from Taiwan. |
| Fatberg | A congealed lump of fat and non-biodegradable buildup in sewer systems. A 250-metre-long, 140 tonne specimen was discovered under London in September 2017. |
| Female urination device | Used by women when needing or wanting to pee standing up. |
| Groom of the Stool | The most intimate Royal office. |
| Hotel toilet paper folding | Ever wondered why it was so? |
| Interactive urinal | A talkingurinal made for advertising purposes. |
| iLoo | Microsoft's attempt to bring you the interwebzzz inside theportable toilet. |
| Jack Black | Not theactor, but the 19th century rat catcher who bred unusually colored rats and sold them as pets. |
| Japanese toilets | The most advanced toilets in the world with computers, nozzles and flashing lights. |
| Lloyds Bank turd | Possibly the largest example of fossilised human feces ever found, discovered under the future site of aLloyds Bank in England. |
| Shit flow diagram | Thisis the technical term. |
| Stainless steel soap | Metallic soap that removes odours from the hands,allegedly. |
| Toilet-related injuries and deaths | Not all injuries and deaths linked totoilets are urban legends. |
| Toilet papering | Art or vandalism? |
| Toilet paper orientation | On the pros and cons of letting toilet paper hangover orunder the roll. |
| Whizzinator | A fakepenis usually used to beat drug tests, complete with dried urine, a heater, and a syringe. Comes in white, tan, Latino, brown, and black. |
| Aglet | That little plastic or metal thing at the end of your shoelace has a name. |
| The dress | The biggest question of 2015: Is it white and gold or black and blue? |
| Fatsuit | Yes, this makes you look fat. |
| Gorilla suit | What to wear when you don't want to look human. |
| Koteka | An unusual traditional garment of westernNew Guinea, also known as the "penis gourd". |
| Meat dress of Lady Gaga | A dress made of flank steak. Currently preserved as jerky in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. |
| Muffin top | A marketing mishap, many well-meaning young women, and vanity came together to form this demographic. |
| Pink Chanel suit of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy | Made iconic by being worn during her husband's assassination. |
| Shoe throwing | The practice of throwing footwear, whether for humorous or political purposes. |
| Shoes on a table | Does it really spell death? |
| Swan dress | 🪿Hjönk |
| Sweater curse | Think your loved one will be pleased if you knit them a sweater? Think again. |
| Three Wolf Moon | AT-shirt withwolves howling at the moon that gained popularity after one person wrote aparodic review for it onAmazon.com. |
| Tin foil hat | The conspiracy theorist's headgear, perfect for avoiding mind control or "5G death shockwaves". |
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| 2001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident | TwoJapan Airlines aircraft were roughly 135 m (443 ft) away from causing the deadliest aviation accident in history. |
| 2003 Angola Boeing 727 disappearance | A Boeing 727 was stolen, with at least two people aboard, and never found. |
| 2010 Filair Let L-410 crash | As Hollywoodtaught us, letting reptiles loose on a plane is never a good idea. |
| 2018 Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 incident | A ground service agent with no flight experience whatsoever managed to do insanely difficult aerial maneuvers in a stolen plane that was thought to be impossible to do those maneuvers in. |
| Aeroflot Flight 593 | A plane that crashed because the pilot let his kids fly it. |
| Aeroflot Flight 6502 | A plane that crashed after the pilot made a bet with the first officer that he could land it blind. Unfortunately for 70 people on board, he couldn't. |
| Aloha Airlines Flight 243 | Landed safely and with only one casualty, despite the plane's ceiling flying off mid-flight. |
| Ampelmännchen | TheEast German "traffic-light little-man". |
| Amtrak paint schemes | Various colors of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. |
| Animals taking public transportation | Nonhuman commuters. |
| AVE Mizar | This nightmare lovechild of aCessna Skymaster and aFord Pinto eventually killed its inventor. |
| Bayside Canadian Railway | A 220 foot (70 meter) long railway created solely to exploit a loophole in theJones Act.U.S. Customs and Border Protection found out and promptly issued a $350 million fine. |
| Billups Neon Crossing Signal | A local inventor's extreme solution torailway crossing safety. |
| Boaty McBoatface | What happens when you allow the British public to name a ship in an online poll? |
| Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway | What do you do when there's water in the way of your train? Just build the rails underwater and make the train a moving pier on 23 foot high legs, complete with lifeboats and a requirement a ship captain be aboard at all times. |
| British Rail flying saucer | Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the 10:13 to Venus. |
| China National Highway 110 traffic jam | The world's longest-lasting traffic jam, in which some drivers were stuck for up to 5 days, moving only 1km (0.6 miles) per day. |
| Cleckheaton Central railway station | The only train station in history to be stolen. |
| Crash at Crush | A high-speed head-on collision between two locomotives, staged as a publicity stunt and attended by an estimated 40,000 people. |
| Cycloped | The entrant into the Rainhill Trial that placed Horse Power against Steam Power. |
| Daallo Airlines Flight 159 | An attempted terrorist bombing that (literally) blew up in the attacker's face. |
| Dagen H | September 3, 1967: The day that Sweden changed itstraffic directionality. |
| Deli Mike | An Airbus A340 that does what she wants. |
| Driving licence in Poland | The real identity of a notorious traffic offender in Ireland named"Prawo Jazdy". |
| Dymaxion car | A 1933concept car with 3 wheels. It was 20 feet (6.1 m) long, carried up to 11 passengers, could go at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour (190 km/h), and had a steering wheel that turned the car in the opposite direction. One ofBuckminster Fuller'sDymaxion concepts. |
| Experiment | A boat with eight horse-powers. Literally. |
| Fastest Shed | Holder of the worldland speed record for sheds. |
| Ferry Lina | The world's shortest regular ferry located in Sweden that takes 25-30 seconds (depending on how strong you are). |
| Gadgetbahn | Fun fun fun. And useless. |
| Ganz MFAV | An odd-looking train that is designed specifically to be used onthe second-oldest underground metro line in the world. |
| Get Out and Push Railroad | Just what it sounds like. |
| Gimli Glider | A confusion over units of measurement leads to aBoeing 767 plane running out of fuel mid-flight and becoming aglider. |
| Horsey Horseless | How to stop cars scaring horses? Put a wooden horse's head on the front. |
| Human mail | Why buy an expensive ticket when you can go bymail? |
| Iron Dobbin | A mechanical horse made in 1933 for the Italian Fascist Youth Movement, later copied by the Germans. |
| Jesus nut | Not your localBible-thumping preacher but the bolt on the top of a helicopter that connects it to the rotor blades. |
| Loose wheel nut indicator | Yes, those little red tags you see on truck wheels reallydo have a purpose. |
| Nut rage incident | Macadamia nuts: delicious, instigator ofair rage. Helped coin aneologism todescribe hierarchical social systems in South Korea. |
| M-497 Black Beetle | TheNew York Central Railroad decided to see what would happen when they strapped two jet engines on a railcar; this was the result. It currently holds the record for fastest train in the Americas at 183.68 mph (295.6 km/h). |
| Mehran Karimi Nasseri | An Iranian refugee who lived inCharles de Gaulle Airport from 1988 until 2006 and again from September 2022 until his death in November that year. |
| Men's parking space | An antonym towomen's parking spaces. The only known instances are two spaces in a garage in Germany. |
| Mile high club | Soaring members. |
| Miss Belvedere | A car buried in atime capsule in 1957 and unearthed in 2007, only to discover that it had suffered 50 years of water damage underground and wouldn't start. |
| MTT Turbine Superbike | The most powerful street-legal motorcycle is run by aturboshaft engine designed for aircraft and can hit 250 miles per hour (400 km/h). |
| No Pants Subway Ride | A celebration of going underground with only underwear down there. |
| Northwest Airlines Flight 253 | Bombing a plane with exploding underwear is never a good idea. |
| Parliamentary train | Have a useless railway station but can't afford to close it? Just run one train every few weeks there! |
| Passenger train toilet | Why passengers must be discouraged from flushing or using toilets while the train is at a station. |
| Paternoster lift | Strange European elevators without doors that travel in a loop. Considered by many to be very dangerous. |
| Peel P50 | The world's smallest car. See also its similarly queer-looking successor, thePeel Trident. |
| Pimpmobile | Drive like ablaxploitation movie protagonist. |
| Plastic bicycle | It seems that making bikes out of plastic is not a recipe for success. |
| Popemobile | Drive like the Bishop of Rome. |
| PZL M-15 Belphegor | A Soviet attempt at aturbofan-poweredcrop duster. It is the slowest jet aircraft to enter production as well as the only jet biplane or jet crop duster to exist. |
| Reduced-gravity aircraft | Also known as the 'vomit comet', lack of gravity is not good for the stomach. |
| Reliant Regal | A three-wheeled car formerly manufactured in England that could be driven with a motorcycle license. |
| Rocket mail | The delivery of mail by rocket or missile, attempted by various organisations in many different countries, with varying levels of success. |
| Rolligon tires | Probably the only way you cansurvive getting run over. |
| RP FLIP | A manned ship that was designed to be capsized at a 90° angle for weeks on end. |
| Schienenzeppelin | An unholy combination of aZeppelin and alocomotive. |
| School bus yellow | The color specially formulated for use onschool buses in the United States. |
| Screw-propelled vehicle | "Screw off" literally. |
| Shipping container architecture | The concept and art of usingintermodal containers to build stuff. |
| Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters "George" | Created, sadly, by non-porters called George who didn't want to be linked with the mostly-Black porter workforce. |
| South-pointing chariot | An ancient Chinese mechanical compass which took a millennium to reproduce. |
| Tall bike | A bike which consists of two conventional bicycle frames connected one atop the other. |
| Train surfing | As respectable and practical as drying one's hair in most parts of the world. |
| Unused highway | Lost highways, unloved and unused. |
| Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 | Question: How do you survive on a freezing cold glacier with the impending threat of starvation? Answer:eat your friends. |
| USGlobal Airways | An active airline founded in 1989 that has never operated a single commercial flight. |
| ValuJet Airlines | Quite possibly the most unsafe airline in history. Think of it as being the air transport equivalent ofAction Park. |
| Vortech Meg-2XH Strap-On | A discontinued strap-on helicopter designed for amateur construction. Somehow no lawsuits are mentioned in the article. |
| Wallsend Metro station | All railroads lead to Rome. With "no smoking" signs, althoughtobacco was unknown to ancient Romans... |
| Westray to Papa Westray flight | The world's shortest passenger flight, lasting as little as 53 seconds. Just don't expect anin-flight meal. |
| The wrong type of snow | Possibly the most feeble excuse for why British trains are so awful. |
| .bv | A top-level domain that isn't being sold, made for anAntarctic island where no one lives. |
| .io | How is a top-level domain fora group of islands with a population of about 3000 military personnel and contractors where leisure tourism is banned so popular? |
| .kp | North Korea's top-level domain. Interestingly, some websites under this ccTLD can be accessed outside of the DPRK. |
| .nu | Niue's top-level domain, which is regulated by Sweden and almost exclusively used by European countries. |
| .su | How a piece of theSoviet Union's internet is not only still online but also still in use to this day. |
| .tv | Sales of websites under this top-level domain name make up 10% of Tuvalu's GDP. |
| 999 phone charging myth | Some people in the UK seriously believe that callingtheir emergency phone number charges your phone. |
| Any key | Press any key to continue. |
| Baby Shaker | A highly controversial iPhone application that told you toshake a baby. That's it. |
| Blinkenlights | DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! |
| Bogosort | The world's worst sorting algorithm works like this: Randomise the list. Is it in order? If not, try again. Or maybe it is the best… |
| The Book of Mozilla | A well-known computerEaster egg found in theNetscape andMozilla series of browsers. |
| Brainfuck | An intentionally difficult to use programming language containing only eight commands. |
| Breakout | How this simple 1976 Atari video game, started bySteve Jobs and finished bySteve Wozniak, helped spur the creation of theApple II. |
| Brian's Brain | He's so smart, he has his owncellular automaton. |
| Builder.ai | An "AI coding" startup that went bankrupt after its "AI" was exposed to just be hundreds of Indian people. |
| Bush hid the facts | Revelations of a vast right-wing conspiracy, or just a glitch? |
| Chudnovsky brothers | A pair of mathematicians who built asupercomputer out of spare parts. |
| Creeper and Reaper | The world's very first computer virus and computer antivirus, respectively. |
| Conway's Game of Life | A simple game with only four rules that people have made beautifully complex machines with. It even has the ability to self-replicate! See also Brian's Brain above. |
| Electric unicycle | The ongoing academic effort to teach robots to ride unicycles. |
| Elvis operator | Gives a new meaning to the term "smooth operator". |
| Emojli | A now-defunct emoji-only social network. Started as a parody of Yo (see below). |
| Enshittification | Richard Stallmanwarned you. |
| Esoteric programming language | Refers toprogramming languages designed as a test of the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, or as jokes, and not with the intention of being adopted for real-world programming. |
| Evil bit | Indicates if a packet has been sent with malicious intent, so that it can be ignored. |
| Gayfemboy | You like committing cybercrime, don't you? |
| Guru Meditation error | If you thought theblue screen of death was bad, this computer error would hamper your quest to reachNirvana. |
| Hallucination (artificial intelligence) | An unfortunate effect from usingAI. |
| Heisenbug | A programming bug that disappears when you study it. |
| Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol | Protocol for controlling and monitoring coffee pots. Attempting to use a teapot while brewing coffee will yield you the "HTTP 418: I'm a teapot" error message. |
| I Am Rich | You must be if you could afford this $999.99iPhone application that only displayed a red gem and a (misspelled) mantra. |
| IDN homograph attack | Тһіѕ lіnk іѕ tоtаllу ѕаfе! Тruѕt mе! |
| Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage | Internet Explorer users have lower than average IQ, according to this (nonexistent) study. |
| International Obfuscated C Code Contest | A competition to create code that no human can read. |
| IP over Avian Carriers | AnInternet protocol for sending data packets usinghoming pigeons. |
| iSmell | A computerperipheral designed to emit smells for websites and emails, later named one of the "Worst Tech Products" byPC Magazine. |
| Kasane Teto | A virtual voicebank that started off as anApril Fool's joke back in 2008 on the Japanesetextboard website2channel. Officially 31 years old but is a teenager when converted to human years. |
| Lenna | How an image of a nudePlayboy model became the industry-standarddigital imagecompression test subject. |
| Loab | According to AI, the exact opposite of many prompts is the same picture of an old woman. |
| lp0 on fire | Want to panic aUnix user? Display an error that their printer is on fire. |
| Macquarium | VintageMacintosh computers-turned-fishtanks. |
| Magic smoke | When a chip fails, it's because the smoke has gotten out. |
| The Million Dollar Homepage | A web page sold for advertising space at 1 dollar per pixel. |
| Mystery meat navigation | The process of not telling you what you're about to click on. |
| Not a typewriter | Well, what is it, then? |
| On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science | A 1990 academic paper which argues thatcomputer programming should be understood as a branch of mathematics, and that the formalprovability of a program is a major criterion for correctness. |
| Pentium F00F bug | An Intel Pentium bug with an unusual name. |
| Phillips Machine | A water-based analogue computer used to model the United Kingdom economy, bringing a new meaning to the termliquidity. |
| PlayStation 3 cluster | When the US Department of Defense chose a side in theconsole war. |
| Reality distortion field | Surely an obscure quantum-physics phenomenon? Nope! |
| Red Star OS | North Korea's official Linux distribution. In line with Kim Jong-un apparently being an Apple fanboy, s latest UI design mimicsmacOS. |
| Rubber duck debugging | Codedebugging by explaining your code to arubber duck. Quack! |
| RTFM | Four letters that solve most problems. |
| Scunthorpe problem | Spam filtering based ontext strings can cause problems. Just ask the residents of S****horpe. |
| Send Me to Heaven | A mobile game won by throwing your phone as close to heaven as you can without it getting there. |
| Tay | An AIchatbot designed by Microsoft to learn the speech patterns of the Twitter users who interacted with it, Tay lasted 16 hours before becoming too racist to remain online. |
| TempleOS | A biblical-themed operating system designed bya single schizophrenic programmer over the course of 10 years after receiving instructions from God. Someassembly required. |
| Trojan Room coffee pot | The fascinating target of the world's firstwebcam: a coffee machine at the computer science department of theUniversity of Cambridge. |
| Universal Typeface Experiment | A promotional website funded byBic, which averaged people's handwriting together to create a unique typeface. |
| Utah teapot | A3D model which has become a standard reference object (and something of anin-joke) in thecomputer graphics community. |
| Vibe coding | Lost your job to AI? Learn to code– actually, wait... |
| Yo | A messaging service whose only function was to send "Yo" to people. |
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| Action Park | "There's nothing in the world like"... hiring untrained teenagers, plying guests with alcohol, and letting the accidents stack right up. Most infamously, there was a water slide with a vertical loop that was so dangerous it was barely ever open. |
| "The Aristocrats" | A joke considered to be both "the world's funniest" and "the world's worst". Also a 2005documentary of the same name. |
| Baseball metaphors for sex | Two of America's favorite pastimes. |
| Beezin' | A fad in which people applyBurt's Beeslip balm to their eyelids. |
| Bigipedia | A unique experiment in "broadwebcasting",Bigipedia is the website on your radio. In association with Chianto—"Officially recognised by theEU as a wine-type product or by-product". |
| "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them!" controversy | T-shirt slogan aimed towards young women, rocks aimed towards young men. |
| George P. Burdell | A fictitious student officially enrolled atGeorgia Tech in 1927, and, except for his "service" in World War II, has been continuously enrolled at the school ever since. |
| Caltech-MIT prank rivalry | They've been sabotaging each other since 2005. |
| Chicago rat hole | A decades-old rat-shaped hole on a sidewalk in Chicago that garnered international fame in early 2024. Pilgrims made offerings of coins, flowers, toys, food and much more. |
| Conan the Librarian | A perennial parody ofConan the Barbarian that has appeared in film, television, comics, and fan fiction. |
| Condoman | An Indigenous Australian superhero who advertised condom usage. Surprisingly effective. |
| Cop slide | A slide in theBoston City Hall Plaza playground that became famous after a viral video of a police officer emerging from the slide going upside-down at an abnormally high rate of speed. |
| Cornell University pumpkin prank | A Halloween prank in which a pumpkin was placed on the lightning rod of a university clocktower in 1997, lasting over five months before it was accidentally knocked down during a rehearsal for its retrieval. The culprit is still unknown. |
| Croydon facelift | A hairstyle peculiar to parts of England. |
| Cultural depictions of Napoleon | Fictional characters believing they are Napoleon are often used to suggest ill mental health. |
| Cultural history of the buttocks | A cheeky article. |
| Dick joke | Jokes about dicks. |
| Evil clown | A recent development in Americanpopular culture in which the playful trope of theclown is rendered as disturbing through the use of dark humor and horror elements. |
| F.A.T.A.L. | The worst-reviewedtabletop role-playing game of all time, where you roll for your character's anal circumference and can listen to a theme song that "sounds like theCookie Monster chasing a drum kit being pushed down a flight of stairs". |
| Flash mob | Wherein a group of people quickly meet up, engage in a random action such as apillow fight, then disappear just as quickly. |
| Free Hugs Campaign | Just what the world needs. |
| Frozen Peas | Orson Welles: brilliant director,notorious pitchman. |
| Fuck for Forest | Do your bit to save therainforest—have anorgy! |
| Ashrita Furman | Holds theGuinness World Record for holding the most Guinness World Records. |
| Garden hermit | In case you are in need of some backyard friends. |
| Ghost riding | A trend popularized byhyphy culture. |
| Gongoozler | A person who likes to watch British canals. |
| Great Stork Derby | What could possibly be in the will of a notorious practical joker? |
| Gurn | A Western term for creating odd appearances of the face. |
| Hacks at MIT | Large-scale pranks and practical jokes, mostly involvingHarvard. |
| He lücht | Like a GermanJungle Cruise, Hamburg port tour guides tell such tall tales that "He's lying" has become a name for them. |
| Human rainbow | A huge gathering of colours. |
| Hundeprutterutchebane | A rollercoaster themed around dog farts. |
| I've got your nose | Spare a thought for the millions of children worldwide whose noses have been stolen. |
| Issei Sagawa | Writer, commentator, minor celebrity, murderer, and cannibal. |
| K Foundation Burn a Million Quid | Why did theK Foundation burn a million pounds in cash? |
| Kayfabe | In professional wrestling, the portrayal of events within the industry as real. |
| Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly | Claimed to have survived five shipwrecks, three car crashes and two plane crashes, and still found time to create a craze forsitting on a flagpole for hours at a time. |
| Killer toy | When children's toys attack! |
| Kuchisake-onna | A Japanese urban legend (probably). Also known as "the slit-mouthed woman", Kuchisake-onna is asking you if you think she's pretty. No matter what you answer, you're doomed. Except if you say "pomade" three times. |
| Land diving | The original bungee jumpers are from Vanuatu. |
| Lawnchair Larry flight | Successfully piloted a lawn chair to 16,000 feet (4,900 m) over Los Angeles. |
| Le Pétomane | A French entertainer famous inVictorian times for being able tobreak wind at will. Practitioners of this... art are calledflatulists. |
| Lighthouse and naval vessel urban legend | An old classic for those who like a laugh at the expense of the US Navy. |
| Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend | Turns out, they have a bit of similarities with each other (not really). |
| List of defunct amusement parks | I thought Marine World was open! Darn it... |
| List of games with concealed rules | Games with clear, obvious rules can be so boring. |
| List of incidents at Disney parks | Did you think that Mickey's home would only be a place of sunshine and fun times? Think again. |
| List of stories set in a future now in the past | Some aged well, some not really. |
| List of works based on dreams | Sometimes you should follow your dreams; after all, it might lead you to createthe most-covered song in the world, writeFrankenstein, create theperiodic table, or discover the structure of theatom. |
| Love lock | Padlock your love to a fence, and throw away the key. That is if it doesn't get removed first. |
| MacGuffin | An object whose value lies in its ability to kick-start a plot. |
| Metafiction | Fiction about fiction. |
| Mooning the Cog | Bad weather isn't the only reason to avoid the summit ofMount Washington. |
| Nazi chic | The approving use of Nazi-era style, imagery, and paraphernalia in clothing and popular culture. |
| No soap radio | A prank joke intended to fool one of its listeners into believing that it is a joke. |
| Robert Opel | The life and eventual murder of thestreaker of the46th Academy Awards. |
| Pass by catastrophe | Has your college just burnt down? Congrats, you now have a bachelor's degree! Sadly, that isn'treally the case in reality. |
| Ping pong show | You've heard ofbaseball metaphors for sex, now get ready for... |
| Pen spinning | An activity in which assorted tricks are used to manipulate a pen in aesthetically pleasing ways. |
| Radio Yerevan | The "radio station" with the widest reach in the Soviet Union, despite having no transmitters. |
| Aron Ralston | One tough guy who, to escape from death, cut off his own arm with a dull knife after aboulder fell on it. Inspired the movie127 Hours. |
| Real-life superhero | All you need is a cape and a dream. |
| Sardarji joke | Popular jokes inIndia, based on stereotypes ofSikhs. |
| Self-referential humor | A joke that refers to itself as the joke. |
| Sewer alligator | A legend that became a pop culture sensation. |
| Stunting | The things radio stations and TV networks will do for attention. |
| Treacle mining | The fictitious mining oftreacle (molasses) in a raw form similar to coal. |
| Tube Bar prank calls | A series ofprank calls to a bar inJersey City, New Jersey during the 1970s, where two pranksters would call for double-entendre names, such as "Al Coholic" and "Phil Mypockets". A recording of it inspired a running gag inthe Simpsons. |
| Umarell | Old people who watch construction sites. |
| Voluntary Human Extinction Movement | A group of people trying to get everyone to stop reproducing. |
| White Horse Dialogue | Did you know, a white horse isn't really a horse? |
| World Famous Bushman | A street entertainer in San Francisco who makes a living by pretending to be a bush. |
| You kids get off my lawn! | I'm gonna call your parents, you kids! |
| 747 | A performance art piece in which the artist fired shots at aBoeing 747 flying overhead, leading him to be questioned by the FBI. |
| America | A fully-functioning solid gold toilet, formerly on display (and available for use) inone of New York's finest art museums. |
| Artist's Shit | A quite literal and humorous meta-art. |
| Augsburg Book of Miracles | A book dated from the 16th century full of weird religious drawings. Featuring a human–donkey–demon hybrid as one of its highlights. |
| Babylonokia | A clay Nokia phone withcuneiform keys. Was once misrepresented as anactual artifact. |
| Big things (Australia) | Giant folk art as tourist traps. |
| Bliss (photograph) | The most viewed photograph in all of human history is... the default wallpaper forWindows XP. |
| Bog Standard Gallery | It's a museum... inside aportable toilet. |
| Boll Weevil Monument | The only known monument built to honor an agricultural pest. |
| Joachim-Raphaël Boronali | The world's most artistically-tailed donkey. |
| Bottle Rack | A modern art piece created by Dada artistMarcel Duchamp. His sister, who mistook it for trash, threw it out. |
| Pierre Brassau | "That's not art; a chimp could have painted that!" |
| Cabazon Dinosaurs | Comprises of "Dinny the Dinosaur," a larger-than-life, 150 ton sculpture of a brontosaurus in the desert of Southern California west of Palm Springs. Dinny's companion is "Mr. Rex," a 150 ton sculpture of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Made by people that think dinosaurs never existed. |
| Cerne Abbas Giant | A very interesting hill figure in the English countryside. |
| Chamber of Art and Curiosities, Ambras Castle | Acabinet of curiosities created byFerdinand II, Archduke of Austria in the 16th century. |
| Christo and Jeanne-Claude | A pair of 20th century artists that became famous for their colossal side ecological works, such as 1972'sValley Curtain and 2012'sThe Floating Piers. |
| Cool S | A symbol of uncertain origins often used ingraffiti. |
| Degenerate Art exhibition | When the Nazis exhibited examples ofart that they didn't consider "purely German" enough, so people could hate it in person. It ended up drawing visitor numbers that regular art galleries in the country could only dream of. |
| The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife | An 1814Hokusai woodcut of a woman getting intimate with a pair of octopuses, sometimes described as the originator oftentacle erotica. |
| Droste effect | The effect of a picture appearing within itself. |
| Disumbrationism | A novelist who's never picked up a paintbrush before creates a false art school and submits amateurish paintings as part of it... and is successful for a while. |
| Earring Magic Ken | How Barbie's boyfriend, in an attempt to look cooler, became a gay icon. |
| Ecce Homo | An otherwise-unremarkable fresco of Jesus that was "restored" by an untrained amateur and now looks like a monkey. |
| Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, Glasgow | Has been regularly topped off with a traffic cone since the 1980s. |
| Fire photography | The act of taking photographs of firefighting operations. |
| Fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square | The horse is missing. |
| Fremont Troll | An 18 foot, 13,000 pound concrete sculpture of a troll clutching aVolkswagen Beetle. |
| Fuckart & Pimp | Going all the way to own your own art. |
| Gävle goat | A giant strawYuletide goat that is the target of frequent arson attacks and vandalism. |
| Geostationary Banana Over Texas | An Argentinian artist's plan(?) to launch a banana-shapedairship overTexas. |
| Hahn/Cock | A giant bluecock in Trafalgar Square. |
| Headington Shark | AnOxford man has had a 25-foot (7.6 m) long sculpture of ashark embedded headfirst into the roof of his unassuming house since 1986. |
| He-gassen | It really puts the "art" in "fart". |
| Hellmouth | The entrance to Hell envisaged as the gaping mouth of a huge monster, an image which first appears in Anglo-Saxon art. |
| Hobby tunneling | Some people just love to dig. |
| Howard Hallis | An artist who attempted to draw the "Picture of Everything", a massive painting containing drawings of thousands of people and items, both real and imaginary. |
| Imigongo | Rwandan art made from cow dung. |
| Megumi Igarashi | Perhaps the world's most prominent in the field of drawing and sculpting the vulva. |
| Jazz | An iconic 1990s disposable cup design. |
| Katrina refrigerator | Loot this! Free meal inside! |
| Knitta Please | NYChip hop graffiti knitters. |
| Kryptos | A sculpture on the grounds of the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency containing four encrypted messages, only three of which have been solved. |
| Latte art | The best art is caffeinated. |
| Latrinalia | The sage and insightful scribblings on your local public bathroom wall. |
| List of largest photographs | Includes information on print and digital photos that are reputedly the world's largest. |
| Musca depicta | For some reason, a lot of artists wanted you to think a fly had landed on their paintings. |
| Museum of Bad Art | A Museum "dedicated to the collection, preservation, and exhibition of really awful artwork". |
| New York City I | Has been hung upside down for four decades, without anyone noticing until recently. |
| Emil Nolde | The curious case of an artist who was an avid supporter ofNazism, yet was later featured in the country's "degenerate art" gallery (see above). |
| Paintings by Adolf Hitler | The dictator and perpetrator of one of the worst genocides in history was also a painter. One can only imagine a world where he got accepted into art school. |
| Pantone 448 C | "Drab dark brown", the least attractive colour, according to research. Used forplain tobacco packaging. |
| Phallic architecture | Does theWashington Monument,Ypsilanti Water Tower orPeoples Daily building remind you of something? |
| Pink Lady | In 1966, a woman secretly painted a 60-foot (18 m) tall portrait of a nude woman over a tunnel and sued when the county tried to take it down. |
| Portland International Airport carpet | A carpet design so famous that it gained a cult following. |
| Pricasso | A man who paints with his genitalia. |
| La Princesse | A 15-metre (50 ft) mechanical spider which stomped aboutLiverpool in 2008. |
| Project Graham | A work of art "symboliz[ing] the vulnerability of human bodies in [car] crashes". |
| Abel Ramírez Águilar | A Mexican sculptor who made a name for himself in ice and snow sculpture after winning gold at the1992 Winter Olympics. |
| Le Rêve | APicasso painting that purportedly would have sold for a record price had its owner,Steve Wynn, not accidentally poked a hole in it, and which eventually did sell for a different record price. |
| Roundabout dog | Seen any dog on the loose while out driving lately? Chances are it's a roundabout dog. |
| Sacred Cod | There's also a "Holy Mackerel",Batman. |
| Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism | Mine is better than yours. |
| Secretum (British Museum) | The British Museum's "Homework" folder during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. |
| Seedfeeder | An illustrator who contributed around 48 free-use drawings to Wikipedia, each being sexually-graphic drawings for articles on each (in)appropriate act. Lives up to their name, don't they? |
| Andres Serrano | An artist whosubmerged a crucifix in his own urine and photographed it. Also created album covers forMetallica by mixing hisother bodily fluids. |
| Sheela na gig | A medieval stone carving of a woman exposing her genitals. |
| Les Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel | A spin-off of the famous medieval bookPantagruel, about the adventures of a gluttonous gigantic being; in the illustrated book, we can have a clue of what that wonderful fella dreams at night. Spoiler alert: it's all hellish creatures. |
| Superlambanana | A statue inLiverpool that's half-lamb, half-banana. |
| Tennis Girl | Photo of a girl with no underwear that became so popular politicians began to cosplay it. |
| Thomasson | Finding the art in things that are still maintained despite being useless. |
| Tillie | An odd painting of a grinning face that used to be on thePalace Amusements building inAsbury Park, New Jersey before it was demolished. |
| Tipu's Tiger | A very... curious mechanical toy created for Indian rulerTipu Sultan that represented his feelings for the expansionistEast India Company on the Indian sub-continent. |
| Trump, the Buddha of Knowing of the Western Paradise | A surreal Buddha-ified statue of Donald Trump, promoted onTaobao with the slogan "make your company great again". |
| Turnip Prize | The prize that satirises modern art by giving awards to low-effort collections of junk. Bonus points for titling it with a bad pun. |
| Unique Forms of Continuity in Space | At least sixteen casts of this "unique" sculpture exist. Not to mention that the sculptor already made a few similar designs. |
| William Utermohlen | An artist who drew self-portraits after being diagnosed with probableAlzheimer's disease in 1995, and would continue these portraits for six years, until 2001. |
| Les UX | A French artistic movement that expresses itself in underground places. |
| 101 Uses for a Dead Cat | A collection of illustrations all about exactly that - its first edition sold over 2 million copies. |
| Aachi & Ssipak | A South Korean animated film about a dystopian future where poop is used as a power source. |
| Acme Corporation | Their products have been used and endorsed by all the best cartoon characters. |
| Afghanis-tan | Central Asian history has never been cuter. (Osama bin Laden makes an appearance as a turban-wearing stray cat.) |
| Archie Meets the Punisher | The team-up you thought would never happen. |
| Archie vs. Predator | Teenagers somehow become worthy game. |
| Behind Closed Doors (book) | An unreleased book of pornographicSpongeBob SquarePants drawings by some of the storyboard artists, partially leaked in July 2023. |
| Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo | A Japanesemanga whose subject matter is as surreal as its title. |
| Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown | A slasher-themedparody of thePeanuts TV series with a mass-murdering Charlie Brown, whosedirector went on to work for Disney. |
| Captain Euro | Have you just introduced a new currency and want to promote it? Do what the European Union did when they introduced the Euro - create a superhero. |
| Cat Soup | An anime shortfilm about cute cats? Wrong! Actually a surrealist short film about concepts such asnihilism,child mortality, theafterlifeor lack thereof, etc. |
| Cartoon physics | Inanimation,humour takes precedence over the ordinarylaws of physics. |
| Censored Eleven | A group ofLooney Tunes andMerrie Melodies cartoons pulled fromsyndication due to their racist depictions of black people. |
| Cheat Slayer | Anisekai manga axed after just one chapter when it was noticed that the villains were thinly-veiled clones of other isekai heroes. |
| Clop | Who knew erotic depictions ofsapient yet still non-humanoid horses would be a thing? |
| Corona-chan | A fictional personification of thecoronavirus which caused racial controversies. |
| "Cow tools" | A cartoon from the comic stripThe Far Side that was so confusing thousands of people called the author trying to understand its meaning. |
| Comic book death | Comic book characters have a tendency to rarely, if ever, stay dead. |
| Dennis the Menace | Two comic strips, in the United Kingdom and the United States, that debuted on theexact same day, with theexact same name. |
| Der Fuehrer's Face | Donald Duck won an Oscar as a Hitler-saluting Nazi. |
| Drawn Together | Every cartoon stereotype ever, in theBig Brother house. Also has itsvery own movie! |
| Ebola-chan | Fictional personification of theEbola virus promoted with racist intentions. |
| Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure | A short pornographic cartoon from the 1920s about a man with an oversized, sentient detachable penis. |
| Foreskin Man | Does whatever a foreskin can to stop circumcision. Also apparentlyanti-Semitic. |
| List of fictional primates in comics | A curious abundance of gorillas in comic book plots during theSilver Age of Comics. |
| Homosexuality in the Batman franchise | DoBruce Wayne andDick Grayson do more together than fighting crime? |
| ISIS-chan | Created by Japanese internet users to purposely offset search results for...the actual thing it was referencing. |
| I Will Survive | The "Zootopia abortion comic", which is somehow stranger than that three-word synopsis suggests. |
| Jenny Everywhere | Anopen-sourcewebcomic character. |
| Kuso Miso Technique | A homoerotic, scatological manga that ended up becoming an online meme. |
| Lily Hoshikawa | Atransgender zombie girl froman anime about the resurrection of deadidols had an unexpectedParliamentary debut. |
| Loss.jpg | A strip that takes four panels and zero words to describe amiscarriage. In a gaming webcomic. It comes as no surprise that many people didn't take it very lightly. |
| Manga Bible | And the Lord said untoJohn, 「お前はもう死んでいる」. |
| The Metric Marvels | As part of the 1970s campaign to encourage use of themetric system in the U.S, the creators ofSchoolhouse Rock! produced these shorts to teach children about liters, meters, and most things in between. |
| Moe anthropomorphism | Even a washing machine can be the girl of your dreams. (SeeWikipedia:Wikipe-tan below) |
| Mickey Mouse in Vietnam | Mickey goes off to fight the Viet Cong. Unauthorised by Disney, of course. By the way, the film director's son was laterone of the co-hosts forMythBusters. |
| Mr. Immortal | AMarvel Comics superhero with no special powers exceptimmortality, who has been killed in ways including crushing, burning, self-impalement on giant novelty scissors, bear trap, cannon, chainsaw, piranhas, ferrets, spear, python, and alcohol poisoning (three times). Prone to fits of rage upon returning to life. |
| NFL SuperPro | Super Bowl meets superheroes. |
| Pinky & Pepper Forever | A shortfurry graphic novel dealing with themes such as Catholicism, lesbianism, relationship struggles, BDSM, suicide, and the afterlife, expressed through characters from ashort-lived line of fashion dolls. |
| Pokémon episodes removed from rotation "Dennō Senshi Porygon" | For various reasons, when it comes to thePokémon TV show, you can't watch 'em all. The most infamous being the "seizure episode", as it's become known. |
| Popetown | Due to complaints by Catholics, this animated series' original broadcasterBBC Three never showed it at all. |
| Syncro-Vox | A very unnerving solution to animating lip movements: slap real actors' lips on your cartoons. |
| Squirrel and Hedgehog | The height of the North Korean animation industry. A tale of talking animals as an allegory forthe North Korean version of history, featuring Americans depicted as laser-eyed wolves. |
| Syaoran LiSyaoran (Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, clone) Syaoran (Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, original) | What happens on Wikipedia when agroup of manga artists take a character from one of their earlier works and perform several cross-references and plot twists. |
| Tentacle erotica | Human-cephalopod sexual relations, popular inhentai. |
| The Leader | Chinese propaganda anime based on the life ofKarl Marx. |
| Tiger Mask donation phenomenon | Theother timemanga's most famous pro wrestler entered the real world. |
| Truck-kun | The character responsible for sending more protagonists toother worlds than any other. |
| Year Hare Affair | Cute animals resembling countries, some of which arenational animals portraying the modernhistory of China. |
| *** | The story of a man who creates ***s out of raws. It is never explained what "***" nor "raw" means. |
| 1601 | A quite risquésquib telling a conversation betweenQueen Elizabeth I and various famous 16th century writers fully on scatological topics, described as "the most famous piece of pornography in American literature". Notably written byMark Twain. |
| 112 Gripes About the French | A handbook produced to help American soldiers understand the French. |
| A True Story | AnAncient Greek parody of tall tales that were told as true in ancient sources, that contains the first literary references to space travel and fighting wars against aliens. The story ends with "the biggest lie of all" - a promise of future sequels. |
| A Void | An entire novel written without using the lettere. See alsoGadsby below. |
| Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos | Published in 1825 as a Victorian children's book and described as "a round game for merry parties", the object of the game was to quickly recite alphabetical tongue-twisting mock-Latin gibberish. |
| Alien space bats | An implausible divergence from the real world, used as a plot device inalternate history. |
| Anthropodermic bibliopegy | The practice of binding books in human skin. |
| Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication | Your helpful NASA guide on talking to aliens. |
| Atlanta Nights | A group of science fiction authors get together and deliberately write an absolutely horrible novel to fool and embarrass a "vanity publisher". |
| Bad Sex in Fiction Award | Created to draw attention to the worst-of-the-worst in describing sex. |
| The Beginning Was the End | A piece of racistpseudoscience written by a self-proclaimedpsychic, that posits mandevolved from a species of intelligent cannibalistic apes. Would be completely obscure if not forDevo. |
| Betteridge's law of headlines | Why, when a newspaper asks ayes-no question, the answer is usually "no". |
| Big Dumb Object | Objects inscience fiction literature and media that are specifically created to be interesting. Too bad they'll probably be overlooked with a name like this... |
| The Book of Heroic Failures | A book which glorifies failure. Started off by theNot Terribly Good Club of Great Britain. The book was a success and thus declared a "failure as a failure". |
| Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year | Who can forget such classics asGreek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers,How to Avoid Huge Ships orNatural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts? |
| La Bougie du Sapeur | A French newspaper published everyFebruary 29th. |
| Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest | A contest to find the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. |
| Cain's Jawbone | A murder mystery puzzle book that only three people have solved since it was published in 1934. |
| Catullus 16 | An explicit ancient Roman poem whose opening line has been described as "one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin". |
| The Anarchist Cookbook | Have you ever been in need of an easy-to-follow bomb manual? Well, now you have it. |
| Codex Seraphinianus | An illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world, written in an imaginary language. |
| Confessions of an English Opium-Eater | This highly popular autobiographical account about the effects oflaudanum led several English authors toopium use. |
| Henry Darger | Writer of a 15,000-page manuscript along with several thousand watercolor paintings and other drawings illustrating the story, who rarely left his small room. His word was worth millions a few years after his death. |
| Dinosaur erotica | Have you ever beenTaken by a T-Rex orRavished by a Triceratops? |
| Death poem | The urge to have famous last words, taken to its logical, carefully rewritten extreme. |
| Empty book | A literal example of why you should notjudge a book by its cover. |
| English as She Is Spoke | APortuguese–English phrasebook translated from a Portuguese–French phrasebook by a man who spoke no English. What could go right? |
| English-language editions ofThe Hobbit | Now collectors' items because of their printing differences. |
| Evil laughter | "Mua-ha-haha-ha-haaa" and the like. |
| The Eye of Argon | An infamously badheroic fantasynovella, written in 1970 by Jim Theis and circulated anonymously inscience fiction fandom since then. |
| Fallout: Equestria | A five volume, 620,000-word longcrossover fanfiction ofMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the post-apocalypticFallout video game franchise. |
| The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women | A 1558 diatribe byJohn Knox againstMary, Queen of Scots andMary Tudor. |
| Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley | A non-existent book by anon-existent author, created for aYellow Pages UK ad, and made real eight years later. |
| "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" | Supposedly the shortest story possible in the English language, thoughErnest Hemingway had nothing to do with it. |
| Future Library project | Project that collects an original work by a popular writer every year from 2014 to 2114. The works will remain unread and unpublished until 2114; one thousand trees were specially planted for the project; the 100 manuscripts will be printed using paper made from the trees. |
| Gadsby | A 50,110-word long book famous for not using the letter "e". |
| Grammarians' War | At the start of the 16th century, British schoolmasters were insulting one another. In Latin, of course. |
| Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality | Textbook on rationality disguised as a Harry Potter fanfiction. |
| Hawking Index | Are you one of the 1.9% to have readHillary Clinton'sHard Choices from cover-to-cover? |
| Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed | The perfect picture book for your little conservative. |
| Hitler Diaries | A sensational discovery in 1983, which turned out to be an elaborate hoax. |
| Hitler Homer Bible Christ | A book whose full title is "Hitler Homer Bible Christ: The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier 1995–2013". A collection ofRichard Carrier's historical works on the origins of Christianity,Greco-Roman culture, and critical method. I don't think it's hard to tell what the humorous part of this is. |
| Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles | An evangelical Christian version of theHarry Potter series, featuring creationism, anti-Catholicism, and Biblical references that assume you have a Bible handy. Maybe written by a traditionalist wife and mother for her children, maybe a hoax -who knows? |
| How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming | No, this isn't about the murder ofa Disney character. This is the memoir ofthe man responsible for declassifyingPluto. |
| A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems | Mix-and-match lines of tensonnets with the same rhymes, to get one of up to 1014 (= 100,000,000,000,000) different poems. |
| I Am a Cat | A novel written from the perspective of a cat. |
| I Am God | A novel in which God is made to keep a diary to chronicle his love for an atheist. |
| I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter | A pro-transgender story, written by a transgender woman, that's named after a transphobic meme. |
| I, Libertine | A non-existent novel that was the subject of a hoax intended to criticize the manner in which best-seller lists are determined. |
| If Israel Lost the War | A very softalternate history romance. |
| The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs | Ten editions' worth of history of theIraq War, as told through changes to the Wikipedia page that was just linked. |
| Jennifer Mills News | A weekly newspaper written by, and about, herself since 2002. |
| The Jungle | This exposé on the meat factories of the 1900s would result in the passage of theFederal Meat Inspection Act and later, by extension, theFDA. |
| L'Art de péter | A pioneering treatise on farts. |
| Lajja | How this 1993 novel was the primary reason for the exile of its author overseas. |
| Lecherous Limericks | Dirty limericks byIsaac Asimov. |
| Lesbian vampire | They don't bite...necks. |
| A Letter to a Royal Academy | An essay written byBenjamin Franklin aboutflatulence. |
| "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den" | A poem written by a Chinese poet in Classical Chinese. It can be read and understood by all who understand the language, even though it consists entirely of the word "shi" repeated 92 times in different tones. |
| Lobby Lud | "You are ____ and I claim my five pounds". |
| Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon | A fictional dish with a quite long name. |
| Magical Negro | An outdatedstock character who helps out white protagonists. |
| William McGonagall | A writer widely held to be the worst poet in the English language. |
| Men in Aida | A homoerotichomophonic translation of Homer: "Men in Aida, they appeal, eh? A day, O Achilles." |
| The Meaning of Hitler | Sir Max Hastings called it 'among the best' studies of Hitler. |
| Yukio Mishima | The onlyLiterature Nobel nominee to attempt a bloody coup of his government (with only four supporters). It's still unclear exactly why. |
| Mock Turtle | The weirdest, and least recorded, character inAlice in Wonderland. |
| Monostich | Poetry doesn't need rhyme, or meter, or in this case, evenmore than one line. |
| My Immortal | A legendarily terrible piece ofHarry Potter fan fiction that awkwardly inserted vampires, time travel, andemo/"goff" subcultures intoJ.K. Rowling's wizarding world. Someone who may have been the author of the piece almost got a major publishing deal for her memoirs. |
| My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy | Bart Simpson's (actually, his voice actress's) autobiography, which she performed at theEdinburgh Festival Fringe in 2004. |
| Naked Came the Stranger | Journalists prove a point when their intentionally awful sex novel becomes a bestseller. Later the basis of a porn film starring Darby Lloyd Rains. |
| Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960 | A hoax biography written about a fictional artist, written as part of an elaborate prank pulled on art critics. |
| Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats | Cat poems byT. S. Eliot. Basis of the musicalCats (and subsequently, thegodawful 2019 film adaptation). |
| Omegaverse | What if humans had alphas, too? (not to be confused with the actual termsalpha and beta males). |
| On Bullshit | A very serious essay byHarry Frankfurt sketching a philosophical theory of, well,bullshit. |
| Order of the Occult Hand | It was as if an occult hand had edited this Wikipedia article. |
| Ossian | "The greatest poet that has ever existed", according toJefferson. But he didn't. |
| P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever | "M" is for...mnemonic? "B" is forbdellium? What? |
| Philip M. Parker | Writer ofThe 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India and thousands of other works... by means of a computer program. |
| A Pickle for the Knowing Ones | Without questions one of finnest Pieces of wrriten text in the English language |
| Pinocchio paradox | What ifPinocchio said his nose will grow? |
| Political interpretations ofThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz | The context of U.S. politics of the mid-to-late 1890s gives a different understanding of the gold, silver and emerald symbolism, among other things. |
| Print Wikipedia | Yes, it does exist. |
| Project Mars: A Technical Tale | A sci-fi book about Mars exploration and the Martians led by "the Elon", written by NASA's chief rocketerWernher von Braun in 1949. |
| Rangila Rasul | How this religious satire made a massive controversy between India's Muslim and Hindu communities, and helped change the nation's legal system. |
| Rejecting Jane | Turns out publishers reallydon't know anything about literature. |
| Rolling Stone (Uganda) | The Ugandan version wasn'ta music magazine, but instead tried to out gay men andget them killed. |
| Amanda McKittrick Ros | The McGonagall of prose.J. R. R. Tolkien andC. S. Lewis competed as to who could read her longest without laughing. |
| Saddam Hussein's novels | Crimes against literature? |
| Shakespeare apocrypha | Anti-Stratfordians (see "Shakespeare authorship question" below) can take heart that therereally are works attributed to Shakespeare that weren't written by him! |
| Shakespeare authorship question | The conspiracy theory that "William Shakespeare" was not the true author of his classic plays. TheEarl of Oxford andChristopher Marlowe are popular candidates, despite them being dead when some of the plays were written. |
| Society of Science, Letters and Art | 19th century bogus literary society which duped learned (and would-be learned) people into purchasing the right to the society's academic dress and letters after their name. |
| Peter Sotos | A writer and musician who explores serial killer and pedophile lore, while simultaneously praising them in his work. For one of his magazine covers, he used an image taken from real child pornography, which he plead guilty to possessing. |
| Pornotopia | "Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose." —Oscar Wilde,The Decay of Lying |
| Striking and Picturesque Delineations of the Grand, Beautiful, Wonderful, and Interesting Scenery Around Loch-Earn | Angus McDiarmad, a native Scots-Gaelic speaker, writes a book on a Scottish Highland area with the help of an English dictionary to great comic effect and is termed "the world's worst author". |
| The Tale of Two Lovers | A 15th century erotic novel written by a future pope. |
| Tender Is the Flesh | What happens when a virus infects every animal on earth includinglivestock? Instead of going vegan, most of the world in this novel decides to legalizecannibalism, and make human meat farms. |
| There once was a man from Nantucket | A gratifying theme for limericks; some of them obscene. |
| Time travel inThe Lord of the Rings | Turns outtime travel is embedded intoThe Lord of the Rings in several different ways. |
| Chuck Tingle | Amonster erotica writer whose stories feature sexual encounters with almost anything you can imagine, ranging from a sentient jet plane to the concept of time. Also a master oftaekwondo (allegedly) and is always seen wearing a pink sack on his head. |
| Le Train de Nulle Part | A French novel, 233 pages long, written without verbs. |
| The Unfortunates | A book whose chapters you can read in pretty much any order. |
| "Whitey on the Moon" | Not everybody was happy to see thefirst man on the Moon. |
| Winnie ille Pu | Winnie-the-Pooh in Latin that became a bestseller. |
| Wonders of the East | AnOld English text from a millennium ago, all about the various creatures that can supposedly be found in Asia. These apparently include dragons, giant ants, hens which burn people, human-donkey hybrids andhumans with fan-like ears that cover their entire bodies. |
| Yi Kŭmch'ŏl | The man behind one-fifth of all North Korean science fiction. If you've ever thought thatconspiracy fiction, lack of simple "good-versus-evil" alignment against the West, and eroticism wouldn't pass the censors in his home country, get ready to be proved wrong. |
| 27 Club | A number of prominent musicians have died at this age, though statisticians attribute the "club" toapophenia – seeing patterns in random data. See also the relatedwhite lighter myth. |
| American Football House | An average house located inUrbana, Illinois that has become a popular tourist sight due to it being featured in a band'salbum cover. See also100 gecs tree. |
| Animutation | The practice of taking lyrics of foreign songs, "mishearing" them into English, and producing aFlash video to go along with it. |
| Avril Lavigne replacement conspiracy theory | The "Paul is dead" (see below) of the millennial generation, with Melissa Vandella playing the role of Billy Shears. |
| Bouncing ball | That thing in music videos that helps you sing along to the lyrics. It dates back to 1924. |
| "Brian Wilson is a genius" | A music journalist's meme from the 1960s that arguably destroyed the career ofthe Beach Boys' main songwriter and producer. (Within three years, Wilson wasworking as a grocery store cashier.) |
| Characters in Devo music videos | Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Wikipedia! |
| "Clapton is God" | Graffiti that's famous for a photo of a dog urinating on it. |
| Clear Channel memorandum | Banning "New York, New York" byFrank Sinatra from radio airplay after 9/11 may make sense, though "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" byThe Beatles sure as hell doesn't! |
| Curse of the ninth | The superstition that any composer of symphonies, from Beethoven onwards, will die soon after writing their own Ninth Symphony. |
| The Dark Side of the Rainbow | What happens when you mixPink Floyd andThe Wizard of Oz? |
| Dave Matthews Band bus incident | The band's tour bus dumped 800 pounds of sewage on a passenger boat. Funnily enough, the opener of that night's concert was "Don't Drink the Water"... |
| Earworm | It's got a hook in you. |
| Elvis impersonator | People pretend to beElvis Presley and only him. |
| Elvis Presley death conspiracy theories | There are many who still believe. |
| Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. | That timeJohn Fogerty was sued for sounding like himself. |
| Freeze 'Em All | An Antarctic concert that madeMetallica the first band to perform on all seven continents. |
| Fyre Festival | The organizers spent so much money promoting the event that they ran out of money to spend on the actual event. They were later faced with eight lawsuits. |
| Industrial musical | Musicals about a business, intended to be seen by the business' employees to improve loyalty and motivation. |
| Jazz ambassadors | Subliminal American values delivered through smooth jams. |
| Lebenslaute | Open air classical music performances as a form of political protest. |
| List of classical music concerts with an unruly audience response | Concerts which didn't work out quite as well as hoped. |
| List of unreleased projects by Kanye West | We're still waiting forYandhi. |
| Literal music video | What happens when you replace the lyrics in a music video with lyrics that describe what's actually happening in the music video? Hilarity ensues. |
| Little Drummer Boy Challenge | I hate this stupid song, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum. See alsoWhamageddon. |
| Loudness war | Why recorded music is getting "louder" over time. |
| Manualism | The little-known art of playing music by squeezing air through the hands. |
| Marilyn Manson–Columbine High School massacre controversy | News media falsely accused Marilyn Manson and his band of the same name for influencing two mass shooters who actually hated his music. |
| Metal Open Air | Intended as Brazil's version ofWacken Open Air, it instead became their version ofFyre Festival. |
| Millennial whoop | Put on a "best of the 2010s" playlist, and hear the same repeated two noteseverywhere. |
| "More Cowbell" | I got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell! |
| "More popular than Jesus" | A remark that later proved deadly forJohn Lennon. |
| Mozart and scatology | Mozart was fond of toilet humour; his letters to friends and family often contained scatological passages. He even wrote music dedicated to scatology, which was shared among a closed group of most likely inebriated friends, the most infamous of which isLeck mich im Arsch (literally "Lick me in the arse"). |
| Musikalisches Würfelspiel | A system written by Mozart in which the musical piece is decided randomly by playing dice. |
| "My Way" killings | You can get killed for singingFrank Sinatra'ssignature tune in the Philippines. |
| Operation Nifty Package | How do you get a dictator out of an embassy? With music, of course! |
| P-Funk mythology | The whimsical universe surrounding theP-Funk all stars. |
| "Paul is dead" | WasPaul McCartney replaced by a lookalike in the 1960s? |
| Pink Floyd pigs | The band's recurring props and references. |
| PopMart Tour | Take an unfinished studio album, hold a press conference atKmart, and put on a show in countries around the world, complete with a spinning mirrorball lemon, a giant martini olive, a large golden arch, and the largest video screen ever toured. That would beU2's 1997–98 tour in a nutshell. |
| Publius Enigma | A mystery wrapped in an enigma related toPink Floyd, which has remained unsolved since it appeared onUsenet in 1994. |
| Rockism and poptimism | What happens when pop music fans take themselves way too seriously? Actually, nothing fun. |
| Roxanne Wars | One hip hop B-side became the most answered-to song in history. |
| Unusual types of gramophone records | From changing speeds, to endlessly-looping locked grooves, to... Bhutanese postage stamps? |
| "Up to eleven" | This article is one louder. |
| Uruguayan Invasion | Just asBritish bands were crossing the pond, Uruguayan bands were crossing the Uruguay River to Argentina. |
| Vestal Masturbation T-shirt | A shirt released by the British heavy metal bandCradle of Filth depicting a masturbating nun on the front and callsJesus Christ a cunt on the back. Multiple people have been arrested for wearing it out in public. |
| Whamageddon | A festive music challenge where you have to avoid listening toa certain Christmas song throughout the Christmas period. Perfect if you're not a fan ofGeorge Michael. |
| Blackbird | A playable violin made out of black stone. |
| Cat organ | A keyboard instrument in which the keys cause cats to meow. |
| Electroencephalophone | A musical instrument controlled by brainwaves. |
| Escopetarra | The guitAR-15 ofColombia. |
| Great Stalacpipe Organ | Made in a cave using stalactites and a lot of patience and ingenuity. |
| Musical saw | The least favourite instrument ofRonnie Wood,the Hollies andthe Screaming Trees. |
| Piganino | Like a harpsichord, but instead of plucking strings, you're poking pigs. May not have existed, but inspired some good music anyway. |
| Ugly stick | An instrument inNewfoundland, an insult everywhere else. |
| Viola jokes | You can tell if a viola player is playing out of tune if you can see the bow moving. |
| Biomusic | Music made by non-humans. |
| Chap hop | Rap music about being English in the 19th-century. |
| Chillwave | Invented to make fun of music journalists and bloggers who hype "the next big thing". Ironically, they then wrote about chillwave as "the next big thing". |
| Christian ska | Apparently, not even God himself can resist the raw power of ska. |
| Crabcore | A half-serious metalcore genre where the musician stretches themselves like the aforementioned crustacean. |
| Danger music | The name is very much literal, music that tries to harm the listener or performer. |
| Early Norwegian black metal scene | More church arsons per capita than any other known music scene! |
| Gothabilly | What ifBuddy Holly was goth? |
| Grunge speak | That time a receptionist convincedThe New York Times that "wack slacks" was slang for ripped jeans and "lamestain" meant an uncool person. |
| Jihadism and hip-hop | Straight outtaISIS. |
| Kawaii metal | The cutest metal subgenre. |
| Lowercase | A genre of ultra-minimalist music that is known for deliberately utilizing silence to contrast with mundane field recordings which have been amplified in volume. |
| Pirate metal | Heavy metal music combined with pirate mythology and jargon. |
| Proibidão | As part of a crackdown on drug cartels inRio de Janeiro, this uniquely Brazilian form ofgangsta rap cannot legally be performed or broadcast on the radio. |
| Unblack metal | Black metal, but Christian. |
| Yu-Mex | Mexican music... from Yugoslavia. |
| Zeuhl | When an influentialFrench prog band makes music in an entirely original alien language, and then other unrelated musicians make similar sounding music in the same alien language. |
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| AKB48 Group | Girl group or franchise? Same withtheir "official" rival group and"spin-off" group as well! |
| GG Allin | A punk-rocker who would attack people attending his concerts, consisting of hoarse, disheveled vocals. He would also take an excessive amount of drugs, strip naked, and defecate on stage. |
| ArnoCorps Austrian Death Machine | A pair of bands who perform songs solely based onArnold Schwarzenegger films. |
| Y. Bhekhirst | A mysterious man with an implaceable accent hands over copies of his self-recorded cassette to random New York record stores in the 80s/90s, which contain a selection of strange, barely comprehensible songs set against sparse, repetitive instrumentation, later spawning a cult following amongoutsider music enthusiasts and a decades-long mystery. |
| Bis Kaidan | What happens whennoise music meetsJ-pop? |
| Boston Typewriter Orchestra | Ah, the beautiful sound oftypewriters. |
| Rosemary Brown | A spiritualist who claimed that dead composers dictated new musical works to her. |
| Buckethead | A virtuoso electric guitarist known for always wearing a white mask and aKFC bucket on his head while performing and releasing over 300 albums over the course of over 30 years. |
| Bull of Heaven | A group that is known for their extremely long albums. Most known for210: Like a Wall in Which An Insect Lives and Gnaws at a runtime of 5.7 years; their longest album is310: ΩΣPx0(2^18×5^18)p*k*k*k at 3.343 quindecillion years long. |
| Caninus | Metal "sung" by pitbulls. |
| CD Rev | Because nothing says gangsta like being funded by a corrupt communist government. |
| Cupcakke | Composer of such notable hits as "Vagina", "Deepthroat", "Best Dick Sucker", "Squidward Nose", and, most recently, "One of My Bed Bugs Ate My Pussy". |
| Dave Blunts | If you thoughtthe Notorious B.I.G orBigXthaPlug was the largest a rapper could get, you aresorely mistaken. Also known for his liberal use of the wordfaggot and working withKanye West. |
| Death in June | Not many otheranti-fascist music groups can claim to be so blanketed with fascist imagery, even down tothe name. |
| Eva Braun | A rock band fromSerbia. |
| Damião Experiença | An eccentric Brazilian singer-songwriter, known for being a reclusive hoarder and singing in his own made-up dialect of Portuguese (which he claimed was spoken on his "home planet"), often about self-contradictory and pro-authoritarian political themes and popular culture. |
| Matt Farley | A songwriter who has released thousands of songs under at least seventy pseudonyms such as "Papa Razzi and the Photogs", "The Hungry Food Band", and "The Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee". |
| The Gerogerigegege | A veryspecial music project that released the sound of a man defecating and a record commemorating the deceasedJapanese emperor with the sound of people having sex to thenational anthem, and had a member who just masturbated on stage. |
| Half Man Half Biscuit | Have you ever listened to "Man of Constant Sorrow (With a Garage in Constant Use)" from the albumNo-One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin' Hedge Cut? |
| Hanatarash | The Japanese noise band that drove a bulldozer into their concert venue. |
| Hatebeak | The thing that should not beak. |
| Hatari | A band that entered the 2019Söngvakeppnin (Iceland'sEurovision Song Contest selection competition) as a joke, only to win first place. The band then finished third in Eurovision's semi-finals, advancing to the Grand Final and finishing 10th place there. |
| Joyce Hatto | A pianist who had many doctored recordings falsely attributed to her long after she stopped performing in public. |
| Les Horribles Cernettes | A science-themed parody band that became the subject of the first ever photographic image posted on theWorld Wide Web. |
| Bobby Jameson | A hippie singer-songwriter outcast who never received financial compensation for his songs and records. Thought to be dead after the 1960s, but then resurfaced with a blog in 2007 aiming to set the record straight about his life story. |
| Jandek | A prolific and pseudonymous singer/songwriter active since 1978 who only grants the occasional interview and has never provided any biographical information. |
| Florence Foster Jenkins | An Americansoprano famous for her singing ability or lack thereof. |
| Kevin MacLeod | Perhaps the most heard musician on the whole internet. |
| Klaus Nomi | Countertenor with an unusually wide vocal range, whose style of dress was commonly referred to as "alien-like" and enjoyed recordingnew wave covers of 1950spop music. |
| The KLF | An electronic band that became mainstream chart-toppers while undertaking confrontationalSituationist-influenced performance stunts, culminating in them performing at the nationally-televised 1992Brit Awards with agrindcore band while firing machine gun blanks into the audience, dumping a dead sheep at the afterparty, and then disbanding. |
| Kunt and the Gang | If you think his name is a bit rude, you should hear his songs such as "Use My Arsehole as a Cunt", "I'm Wanking over a Pornographic Polaroid of an Ex-Girlfriend Who Died" and "Jesus Died of a Stranglewank". Then there was the one about his paperboy... |
| LadBaby | A British YouTuber who had fiveChristmas number ones in the UK in a row between 2018 and 2022, all of them beingsausage roll-themed parodies of well-known songs. |
| Laibach | A Slovenian industrial band known for combining totalitarian aesthetics with pop culture, including martial covers ofthe Beatles andQueen. Also known as the first Western band to perform in North Korea. |
| Longmont Potion Castle | An anonymous musician and infamous prank-caller who distorts his voice, and plays up the absurdity of a call without breaking character.Alex Trebek hasn't caught him yet, but one day he will. |
| Merzbow | A Japanese experimental music project whose most popular album has been affectionately described as "what a bug hears when it's being flushed down the toilet" and "directly looking at the sun with your ears". |
| Moondog | A blind composer, theoretician, poet, and inventor of musical instruments who dressed like a viking and lived as astreet musician in New York between the 1940s and 1970s. |
| MP4 | Rock music andMembers of Parliament do mix. |
| Nigga | A Panamanian singer adopted this unfortunate name after being told he sang like a Jamaican. Renamed himself Flex in 2009. |
| Okilly Dokilly | A band that performsmetalcore songs about the characterNed Flanders fromThe Simpsons, while dressed as the character as well. |
| One Pound Fish Man | A man who works at a market who sawhis sales patter go viral and challengethe X Factor for theChristmas number one single in 2012. |
| Panchiko | A group of British teenagers form a band and record a demoCD-R which is quickly forgotten about. Around fifteen years later, someone discovers a corrupted copy in a charity shop, and it becomes an online phenomenon. |
| Eilert Pilarm | TheElvis impersonator who looks and sounds nothing like Elvis. |
| Charles Manson discography | Wait,whose discography?? |
| Joe Seiders | In a bizarre case of life imitating art, thisNew Pornographers drummer was arrested for child pornography in April 2025. |
| SpaceGhostPurrp | Rapper credited with inventing or coining at least 3 seperate sub-genres of hip hop single-handedly, also known for his extremely profane social media rants. |
| R. Stevie Moore | A one-man band who has self-released over 400 albums through his home-based mailing service since 1982. Later noted as a pioneer ofDIY music andindie rock. |
| Portsmouth Sinfonia | An orchestra made up entirely of people with no experience in playing their respective assigned instruments. |
| Les Rallizes Dénudés | A pioneering Japanese experimental rock band, known for releasing virtually no studio material despite being active for around 30 years, their reclusive founder refusing nearly all interviews and media coverage, while nevertheless going on to be highly influential among Japan's avant-garde underground. This may or may not have been due to the fact the original bassist was involved inhijacking a domestic air flight and redirecting it towards North Korea. |
| The Residents | A long-running avant-garde music collective that perform wearing eyeball helmets and disguises, successfully maintaining their anonymity for around 50 years. One early rumor was that they were actuallythe Beatles. |
| Rockbitch | An all-female pagan rock band who were notorious for performing live sex acts on stage. |
| Mamoru Samuragochi | A "deaf composer" who wasn't deaf and didn't compose anything. |
| The Shaggs | None of this band's members really wanted to form a band, nor did they really have any musical talent, but hey, a fortune teller predicted success, so off they went... |
| Thai Elephant Orchestra | An orchestra of elephants playing specially-designed instruments. |
| TISM | An (extremely) Australian rock band whose members are anonymous, perform wearing balaclavas and use pseudonyms like "Eugene de la Hot Croix Bun" and "Ron Hitler-Barassi". Known for their confrontationaldark comedy, their song titles include "Defecate on My Face", "I Might Be a Cunt, But I'm Not a Fucking Cunt", "Martin Scorsese Is Really Quite a Jovial Fellow", "What Nationality IsLes Murray?", "Whatareya? (You're a Yob or You're a Wanker)" and "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me". |
| Tonetta | A reclusive divorced man who gained a cult following in his sixties after posting videos to YouTube of his own lo-fi, independently made songs, often with sexually explicit lyrics coupled with footage of himself cross-dressing. |
| Tout-à-Coup Jazz | A Burkinabé jazz band from the 1970s whose membership included two future leaders of the country: coincidentally, both thevictim andperpetrator ofthe samecoup d'état. |
| Twin Temple | "Satanicdoo-wop". Enough said. |
| The Vegetable Orchestra | An Austrian orchestra whose musical instruments are made solely from vegetables. |
| Viper | Has released over 1,927 albums, though a majority contain recycled material. Titles of his work includeYou'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack andKill Urself My Man. Arrested in 2024 for allegedly holding a woman captive in his garage in Houston for five years, among other atrocities. |
| The Wealdstone Raider | A supporter of English non-league football teamWealdstone F.C. whoseretorts towards rival supporters went viral and saw him challenging for theChristmas number one spot in 2014. |
| Wesley Willis | A musician and visual artist who recorded songs about topics such as his home town of Chicago, his schizophrenia, violent confrontations with cartoon superheroes, and bestiality, was fond of headbutting fans, and often ended his songs with "Rock over London, rock on, Chicago" followed by a product slogan. |
| Gary Wilson | An experimental musician who sings about stalking girls and plays with duct tape, fake blood, powder, and mannequins when on stage. |
| Wild Man Fischer | A schizophrenic Los Angeles street entertainer whose big break was recording an album withFrank Zappa. Their collaborations ended when Fischer, in a violent rage, threw a bottle that nearly hit Zappa's daughterMoon. |
| Xavlegbmaofffassssitimiwoamndutroabcwapwaeiippohfffx | A South African grindcore band known for their strange name andeven stranger logo. |
| Ya Ho Wha 13 | Acult psych rock band...literally. |
| The Zimmers | A rock band made up of elderly musicians. As of 2017[update], the oldest member had lived to 101. |
| The Zombeatles | Paul isundead. |
| 4'33 | A composition that is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. |
| A Musical Joke | A composition thatMozart allegedly made to mock bad composers. |
| As Slow as Possible | A piece of music byJohn Cage to be performed until 2640. |
| "Carnival of Light" | TheHoly Grail for Beatles fans: an 11-minute recording of the Fab Four aimlessly bashing their instruments and shouting gibberish. |
| Cat fugue | A piece forharpsichord allegedly inspired by the sounds the composer's cat produced by walking along the instruments keyboard. |
| Duetto buffo di due gatti | A duet in which twosopranos repeatedlymeow at each other. |
| Grosse Fuge | A composition written by Beethoven which was universally put down at the time as being "incomprehensible", now accepted as one of his greatest works. |
| Helikopter-Streichquartett | Astring quartet composition byKarlheinz Stockhausen that must be played in four circlinghelicopters, the sound remixed, chopper sounds and all, for an audience on the ground. |
| I Am Sitting in a Room | A piece in which the composer recites and records a brief explanation of the work, plays back and records the echo of the recording, then records the echo of the echo of the recording, and so on until it is transformed into a completely unrecognizable sound. |
| "Leck mich im Arsch" "Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber" "Difficile lectu" | Three canons by Mozart aboutlicking him in the arse–see also Mozart and scatology above. |
| List of musical works in unusual time signatures | What's the most absurd time signature you can imagine? 1/12? ⅔/2? How about 32⁄2/4? |
| List of silent musical compositions | Not to be confused with "The Sound of Silence", these tunes don't have really much to hear. Among them isone of the most famous classical compositions of the 20th century. |
| List of music considered the worst | We built this city on not being very good. |
| Rage Over a Lost Penny | An audience favorite fromBeethoven's oeuvre. It's gleefully angry, but the maestro left it unfinished. |
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| "The Anacreontic Song" | An 18th-century drinking song whose melody was later adopted for "The Star-Spangled Banner". |
| "Anyone Can Fall in Love" | The relatively obscure lyrics to theEastEnders theme tune. |
| "All Summer Long" | A song where two karaoke cover versions becameone-hit wonders in 2008 on theBillboard Hot 100 because the original song was not released oniTunes, only to radio. One of the covers even charted a few places higher than the original. |
| "Boris Johnson Is a Fucking Cunt" | A foul-mouthed comedy punk song about thethen-British Prime Minister that attempted to be theUK Christmas number one in 2020. Despite getting no air time, it got to No. 5. The following year, it spawned a sequel, which also got to No. 5 in the Christmas chart. From the same band that brought you "Prince Andrew Is a Sweaty Nonce" and "Fuck the Tories". |
| "Camouflage" | A vinyl single from 1983 that contained a computer programme for the song's own music video for theZX81. Created by a man who later found fame wearing apapier-mâché head. |
| "Chinese Food (song)" | A song aboutChinese cuisine (as you can tell from the title) that was controversial withcultural insensitivity. What's even weirder is that the music video has subtitles changing language as the song progresses. |
| "Chocolate Salty Balls" | A 1998 song fromSouth Park, which got to the top 10 in several countries' charts, including number one in the UK, but it is notjust about food. |
| "Do the Bartman" | A novelty dance one-hit wonder rap song fromThe Simpsons in 1990, whose backing vocals were done by none other thanMichael Jackson. |
| Dur dur d'être bébé ! | A 4-year old made it onto the Billboard Hot 100. |
| "Eat Your Salad" | The Latvian entry of theEurovision Song Contest 2022. The lyrics speak of "eating veggies and pussy", along with numerous other sexual innuendos. Somehow, the song still has a serious message. |
| "E depois do adeus" | The Portuguese entry of theEurovision Song Contest 1974 was used as a signal to launch asuccessful national coup d'état. |
| "Euro-Vision" | The Belgian entry of theEurovision Song Contest 1980 whose lyrics spoke precisely ofthe event in which they took part, and deliberately attempted to be last-place. |
| "Fat Juicy & Wet" | Bruno Mars +Sexyy Red + strip club beat? "So, so dry", according toPitchfork. |
| "Five Per Cent for Nothing" | A very short instrumental bya band noted forverylongsongs that was retitled as a parting shot attheir former manager, who sued them afterwards. |
| "Flappie" | A Dutch Christmas song about cannibalism. |
| "Flatline" | Who knewthe guy who made "Nothin' on You" and "Airplanes" would veer intothe most redundant conspiracy theories? |
| "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" | A 2013 song "created to fail" by Norwegian comedy duoYlvis that instead ended up becoming a global smash hit. |
| "Give That Wolf a Banana" | A song that combinesLittle Red Riding Hood and two crazy 4.5 billion year old yellow wolves called Keith and Jim. The meaning of the song is debated, but one common theory is of all things, vaccines. It's also a Eurovision song, to boot. |
| "Gloomy Sunday" | A Hungarian dirge from the 1930s that the press of the time claimed was linked to over 100 suicides, earning it the moniker of the "Hungarian Suicide Song". |
| "Hatten är din" | A Lebanese love song turned into a Swedish song about hats and a drinking game, by mishearing the lyrics. |
| "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball" | Wasder Führer only half a man? See alsoPossible monorchism of Adolf Hitler. |
| "How to Rob" | If you made adiss track, how many people would you target? |
| "Jeg har set en rigtig negermand" | A Danish #1 single from 1970, extolling the virtues of racial equality while calling a "negro man" "black as a bucket of tar". |
| "Jiggle Jiggle" | That time when an autotuned interview withLouis Theroux became so popular they convinced him to do a song. |
| "Justice for All" | A surreal choral/spoken-word... thing recorded by Donald Trump and 20 men in prison forattacking the Capitol on January 6. |
| "Lemon Incest" | Fun for the whole family!..... NOT! |
| "Lift Yourself" | Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-whoop. Whoop-di-scoop-di-poop. |
| Lostwave | Unknown songs, lost to time. |
| "Never Learn Not to Love" | The Beach Boys' collaboration withCharles Manson. (Yes,that Charles Manson.) |
| "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah" | If you can see someone's underwear, here's the tune to tell them by. |
| "The People's Choice Music" | Contains what the artists made to be the worst song ever: featuring operatic rapping, a children's choir urging listeners to go toWalmart, bagpipes, cowboy music, and political slogans shouted through abullhorn. |
| "Planet of the Bass" | A deliberately broken English 90s Eurodance parody from 2023. |
| "Poison: Iitai Koto mo Ienai Konna Yo no Naka wa" | A random Japanese rock song that gained popularity due to its ability to calm crying babies. |
| "Prisencolinensinainciusol" | The song where the lyrics are deliberately unintelligible gibberish intended to sound to its Italian audience as if it is sung in English spoken with an American accent. |
| "Ram Ranch" | A spoken-word heavy metal song about a gay cowboy orgy that became an internet meme and a counter-protest song against theCanadian convoy protest. |
| "Ready 'n' Steady" | A song mentioned in a top songs list of a notable magazine, that was long-believed by some to be non-existent because collectors were unable to find a recording or further information on it until 33 years after it was written. |
| "Rocket Queen" | If you want to hear the sound of a woman having sex with Axl Rose set to music, now's your chance! |
| "Save the Badger Badger Badger" | Brian May ofQueen fame lays down guitar for a mashup of the viral 2010 flash animationBadgers with his own song "Flash" with vocals fromBrian Blessed, all to protest against UK PMDavid Cameron's policies onbadger culling. |
| "Shukusei!! Loli Kami Requiem" | Touch her, you'll be arrested. |
| "Steve's Lava Chicken" | As of 2025, the shortest song to chart on theBillboard Hot 100 and theUK Singles Chart is a 30-second jingle about la-la-la-lava ch-ch-ch-chicken. |
| "Subways of Your Mind" | A song taped off a radio station in 1984 by a German teenager for a mixtape, which he forgot the name of, resulting in a decades-long hunt for the song that was resolved in November 2024. |
| "Supermarioland" | Rapping set to the theme ofSuper Mario Land. After hearing the song,Nintendo not only cleared the sample but also requested they make an album ofSuper Mario material. |
| "Suzukake no Ki no Michi de 'Kimi no Hohoemi o Yume ni Miru' to Itte Shimattara Bokutachi no Kankei wa Dō Kawatte Shimau no ka, Bokunari ni Nannichi ka Kangaeta Ue de no Yaya Kihazukashii Ketsuron no Yō na Mono" | ApparentlyAKB48's producers couldn't come up with a snappier title. |
| "Teletubbies say "Eh-oh!"" | A novelty nursery-rhyme remix of theTeletubbies theme tune that got to number one in the United Kingdom, and was narrowly beaten for Christmas number one in 1997. This did not stopBob the Builder from getting Christmas number onethree years later, though. |
| "Tetris" | AEurodance version of theTetris theme co-produced byAndrew Lloyd Webber. It was in the British charts at the same time as "Supermarioland" mentioned above. |
| "Timothy" | A top 40 hit in 1970, written byRupert Holmes of "The Piña Colada Song" fame, that gained success despite (or due to) the fact it was about cannibalism during a mining disaster. |
| "To Be or Not to Be (The Hitler Rap)" | A comic rap performed byMel Brooks, sung asAdolf Hitler. "Don't be stupid, be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi Party". |
| "To Me, To You (Bruv)" | An unexpected collaboration between rapperTinchy Stryder and British comedy duo theChuckle Brothers. |
| "Ulterior Motives" | Alostwave song from a small song-finding website which went viral on Reddit and was found in an 80s porn film. |
| "United Breaks Guitars" | A protest song againstUnited Airlines which caused their stock price to fall by 10% and cost shareholders $180 million. |
| "We Didn't Start the Fire" | A song covering the major events of 40 years. Check "Events and people outlined" for explanations of each. |
| "Who I Smoke" | No matter how deep rap feuds get, it can never get as bad as dissing your dead opps over "A Thousand Miles" of all samples. (Officially sanctioned byVanessa Carlton herself.) |
| "You Suffer" | At a full 1.316 seconds in length, the shortest song with a physical single release of all time. |
| "You're Pitiful" | The true story of how aWeird Al Yankovic parody caused the article forAtlantic Records to be regularlyvandalized. |
| ( ) | An album by Icelandic bandSigur Rós featuring songs in an entirely made-up language. |
| 21½ Minutes in Berlin/23 Minutes in Brussels | A pair of live recordings by the bandSuicide, with the B-side showing an audience grow increasingly agitated atElvis Costello not performing, before devolving into a riot. |
| A Rubber Band Christmas | An album of Christmas music created usingoffice supplies. |
| Altered States of America | Thisgrindcore album byAgoraphobic Nosebleed has 100 tracks, including many under 15 seconds in length. It even has a track 0! |
| Amore | A Japan-exclusivecity pop album fromthe granddaughter of former Italian fascist dictator,Benito Mussolini. |
| All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling | An early album byGodspeed You! Black Emperor, which had such a tiny release it was consideredlost media until 2022. |
| The Big Day | One of the most acclaimed rappers of the 2010s makes an entire album dedicated to how much he loves his wife. It isnot well-received and they end up divorcing a few years later. |
| The Boy Bands Have Won | There's actually 151 more words in that title, making it the longest-titled released album. |
| Christmas in the Stars | Jon Bon Jovi's recorded music debut was for aStar Wars-themed holiday album. |
| Cigarettes and Valentines | An entire record byGreen Day whose master tracks were stolen; this led to the creation ofAmerican Idiot. |
| Cruel World of Dreams and Fears | A Czechblack metal album noted for its cover, of artist Draugveil wearing corpse paint and a suit of armour, lying in a field of roses. It attracted of meme parodies and claims that AI was first used to make the cover, and then everything else on the album. |
| Dark Night of the Soul | Due to a legal dispute, this album was released with a blank CD-R. |
| Dr. Octagonecologyst | Who knew someone would rap about a homicidal extraterrestrial time-traveling gynaecologist? |
| Elvis' Greatest Shit | Not the one he was trying to pass the night he allegedly died. |
| Embrace (American band Embrace album) Embrace (English band Embrace album) | What happens to Wikipedia article titles when two different bands with the exact same name both release self-titled albums. |
| Eurobeat Disney | A Japan-exclusive album ofeurobeat remixes to Disney songs. Heck, it even spawned a couple of sequels, which areEurobeat Disney 2 andEurobeat Disney 3. |
| Everywhere at the End of Time | An audio portrayal of the mental decay ofAlzheimer's disease over 6½ hours. Somehow became popular onthe app with the shortest attention span. |
| Everyday Chemistry | A supposed album bythe Beatles, from an alternate dimension where they never broke up. |
| The Fucking Cunts Treat Us Like Pricks | The title of this album led to obscenity charges. |
| Gasms | Gasms. |
| Having Fun with Elvis on Stage | An officialElvis Presley live album with no music, consisting of random on-stage banter and comments from between songs stripped of any coherence or context. |
| Helter Stupid | Negativland created a fake story abouta murderer being inspired by their music, then made an albumbased on samples of media falling for the hoax. |
| I Am the Greatest | Muhammad Ali does diss track rap, in 1963. |
| Is This What We Want? | Music artists from the United Kingdom decided to band together to make an album to protest against using copyrighted works to train AI. Or:Sleepify (see below) for the modern people. |
| In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy | A cover album of metal and hard rock songs in a jazzy mood byPat Boone. |
| In Search of The | A box set isn't particularly unusual. A box set of 13 full albums that have never been released before, handmade by the artist, is pretty unusual. |
| Katy Hudson | Katy Perry's first ever album 6 years before her pop music career, an obscure gospel album whose record label went bankrupt the year it was released. |
| The Lillywhite Sessions | Never officially released, and yet fans and critics can argue that it's the best "album" by theDave Matthews Band. |
| Meow the Jewels | Mew mrrp meow purr mrrp. |
| Metal Machine Music | A 1975 album byLou Reed that consists of 64 minutes ofaudio feedback, widely believed to have either been an elaborate joke, or an attempt by Reed to escape from a record label contract. |
| The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief | A three-sidedLP. |
| Mouth Sounds | In whichModest Mouse,Alanis Morrisette, andHuey Lewis and the News are mixed with "All Star". ASMR lovers avoid, Shrek lovers welcome. |
| Mr. Bungle | The self-titled and most chaotic album from analready chaotic band.Ska,circus music,jazz fusion andfunk metal are just a few of the genres used, along with samples from pornography,public service announcements,David Lynch'sBlue Velvet, and the sounds of a man defecating. |
| Musique pour Supermarché | This album byJean-Michel Jarre had only a single copy produced, which was then auctioned off like a painting. The master tapes were subsequently destroyed, making the copy unique. |
| No Love Deep Web | To protest the album being delayed without their consent,Death Grips leaked it online early while using a photo of the drummer's penis as cover art. |
| Once Upon a Time in Shaolin | AWu-Tang Clan album that only had one copy produced, being bought byMartin Shkreli for two million dollars, making it the most expensive work of music ever sold. |
| Orgasm | How a bunch of tripped-out hippies in 1969 decided to invite random people from the streets of New York to contribute to their experimental album, and in the process ended up inventingindustrial music,noise rock and perhaps evenblack metal decades ahead of schedule. |
| The Road to Freedom | A "spectacular hit album" of...Scientology songs? |
| Sleep | An 81⁄2 hour concept album about sleep. Also available in a one-hour version if you're in a hurry. |
| Sleepify | Silence is golden, especially when you're trying to fund a world tour. |
| Songs of the Humpback Whale | An album of whale song, which due to a giveaway byNational Geographic resulted in the largest ever single print run of vinyl records in history. |
| Smile | An unfinished Beach Boys album that is one of the most written-about and speculated-upon works in popular music history. |
| Sweet Insanity | A rejected Brian Wilson album that was written and recorded withhis ex-psychologist. Includesa rap song that opens with the line, "My name is Brian and I'm the man, I write hit songs with the wave of my hand!" Wilson's fans threatened to murder a critic for publishing a positive review. |
| Trout Mask Replica | A chaotic 1969 pop album byCaptain Beefheart and His Magic Band containing bizarre and disjointed musical compositions. |
| Utautai ga Uta Utai ni Kite Uta Utae to Iu ga Utautai ga Uta Utau dake Utaikire ba Uta Utau keredomo Utautai dake Uta Utaikirenai kara Uta Utawanu!? | For some reasonGreeeen tried to come up with atongue-twisting album title. |
| Wake Up! | A rock album officially sanctioned by the Pope. |
| Yesterday and Today | A North American release fromthe Beatles that is most notorious for its album art, which features the Fab Four posing with decapitated baby dolls and chunks of raw meat. |
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| 2 Girls 1 Cup | Just don't watch it. |
| 3 Dev Adam | A Turkish movie featuring (unlicensed)Captain America andEl Santo battling evilSpider-Man. Quite successful in Turkey, resulting in other unlicensed films such as the infamousTurkish Star Wars. |
| 100 Years | A movie that your grandchildren and great-grandchildren might be able to enjoy! |
| Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies | "He emancipated the slaves... he saved the union... and slaughtered the undead!" – Film tagline |
| An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn | A movie about a director who makes a bad movie and has to use the pseudonymAlan Smithee, but can't remove his name from the credits because his actual name isAlan Smithee. In reality, the movie about the movie was so bad that directorArthur Hiller was credited as Alan Smithee to disguise himself from the production. |
| Amazing Grace | A film that got assembled 40 years afterthe director forgot to useclapperboards, andthe star didn't want you to see. |
| Ambiancé | An experimental film that was scheduled to have a thirty day-long running time, with the only copy being destroyed after its premiere, only for it to be unexpectedly cancelled by the director after its release date passed without a showing. |
| Atuk | A comedy screenplay, never filmed as its intended lead actors just kept dying. |
| Barbenheimer | The biggest movie phenomenon of 2023, whereMalibu meets theManhattan Project. |
| Birdemic: Shock and Terror | A climatology fever dream meets a virology fever dream meets an ornithology fever dream meets a cinematography fever dream. |
| Black and white hat symbolism in film | The hat, sir, whatever could it mean? |
| Boss Nigger | He's black, bad, and has one hell of a catchy theme song! |
| Can Dialectics Break Bricks? | A Hong Kongkung fu film re-edited and dubbed to be turned into aSituationist analysis and parody of class conflict and the workers' movement. |
| William Castle | Horror director who loved a promotional gimmick.One film offered a $1000 insurance policy if you died of fright, andanother offered audiences a full refund if they were too scared to see the ending. |
| Cocksucker Blues | ARolling Stones documentary which was banned from being shown unless the director was physically present. |
| The Conqueror | John Wayne ISGenghis Khan! The filming location ISradioactive! |
| The Cure for Insomnia | A movie that runs for 85 hours. Not the longest movie ever screened though (see below). |
| The Day the Clown Cried | A notorious unreleased film about the Holocaust byJerry Lewis – hey, it's a comedy! |
| Deafula | A vampire movie shot entirely inAmerican Sign Language. |
| Death of a President | A mockumentary film created about the hypothetical future assassination ofGeorge W. Bush, released while he was still in office. |
| Dump months | The opposite of the summer movie season. |
| El Conde | What if I told you Augusto Pinochet was a centuries-old vampire, and son of Margaret Thatcher? It's more likely than you think. |
| Emesis Blue | A psychological horrorfan film animated withSource Filmmaker loosely based on the lore ofTeam Fortress 2. |
| Emilia Pérez | A film about a Mexican transgender cartel leader made by a French guy who didn't film it anywhere even near Mexico because he "already knew enough". Surprisingly managed to anger every community it pandered to and was still nominated for13 Oscars, winning2. |
| Empire | A film byAndy Warhol consisting entirely of eight hours of still footage of theEmpire State Building. |
| Empires of the Deep | A $140 million unreleased US-Chinese aqua-fantasy film that sunk to the depths of the sea... |
| The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks | An early Soviet film featuring a wealthy American man and his bodyguard named "Cowboy Jeddy" who find themselves involved in a series of stereotypical comedic mishaps in post-revolutionary Russia. |
| Fidos Award | For the world's best acting dogs. |
| First on the Moon | Proof that the Soviets got there, thirty years before Armstrong and Aldrindidn't. |
| Freddy Got Fingered | TheTom Green gross-out comedy that is simulteneously agreed upon to be one of the worst films ever made, and one of the best comedies of all time, depending on who you ask. |
| Fritz the Cat | "We're not rated X for nothin', baby!" |
| Gayniggers from Outer Space | Not only were this film's wikipedia andIMDb pages treated as quasi-shock sites due to the title, it also inspired the name of aninfamous trolling group |
| Golden Raspberry Awards | An award given to bad movies. Notable recipients includeTwister,Gigli, andThe Cat in the Hat. |
| Him | One of the most sought-afterlost films is a 1974 gay porno about Jesus. |
| I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney | "I knew I wanted to be a director, and I did a couple of short films, and this is the only one that haunts me." —Ben Affleck, Academy Award winner |
| In the Aftermath | A B-movie studio gets the rights toa surrealist anime and re-edits it into a post-apocalyptic thriller. |
| Italian Spiderman | An Australian production made with the goal of being a tribute to old Italian action films. |
| Killer Bean Forever | An action movie with sentientcoffee beans as the main characters. |
| Lee Kin-yan | A Hong Kong actor repeatedly cast inStephen Chow films as a nose-picking, bearded transvestite. |
| Lesbian Space Princess | A film about a lesbianbounty hunter who saves her ex-girlfriend from creatures known asStraight White Maliens. |
| List of films featuring giant monsters | You are never safe in Tokyo. |
| List of films featuring time loops | Study this to know what to do if you're trapped in a time loop. |
| List of films that most frequently use the word "fuck" | Golly! |
| Logistics | Theworld's longest movie ever made, it follows the entire five-week process of making and selling apedometer in reverse chronological order. |
| The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World | A movie that runs for 48 hours. Despite its title, it isn't the world's longest movie, but the jury's still out on whether it's the most meaningless.... |
| Maidstone | A film notable for a real, bloody fight betweenits director andits star actor that was kept in the final edit. |
| Manic Pixie Dream Girl | A femalestock character in (usually) movies who is extremely eccentric and girlish, and serves mainly to motivate and/or provide character development for the male protagonist. |
| Manos: The Hands of Fate | A low-budget film created by a fertilizer salesman from Texas, which is often considered to bethe worst film of all time. |
| The Many Faces of Jesus Gay Jesus film hoax | Avery controversial abandoned film which would have depicteda bisexual Jesus engaged in robbery and drunkenness, personally condemned by PopePaul VI. Its screenwriter was personally banned from entering the United Kingdom following its announcement. Since the 1980s, a widespread hoax has came up claiming that a similar film will feature Jesus as a swinger. |
| Mockbuster | Not the movie you want, but the bargain-bin equivalent. |
| Modern Times Forever (Stora Enso Building, Helsinki) | The second longest film ever shot: ten whole days of one decaying buildingLife After People-style and first screened in front of itself. The directorshave a point. |
| MTV Movie Award for Best Shirtless Performance | Had only been awarded three times. |
| The Mystery of the Leaping Fish | A 1910s silent film about an ace detective who takes loads of cocaine. |
| Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead | Part 2 has the longest film title in the English language. |
| Norodom Sihanouk filmography | The prolific, decades-long filmmaking career of the former king and prime minister of Cambodia. |
| Oscar bait | There are certain rules one follows when making an Oscar film. Includingmental illness,the Holocaust andMeryl Streep in your film also helps. |
| On the Art of the Cinema | North Korean cinema is best Korean cinema. |
| The Overcoat | A Russian animated film thatthe director has been struggling to complete for forty years. |
| Paint Drying | Created to test the patience of theBritish Board of Film Classification. |
| Palm Dog Award | An award given out every year at theCannes Film Festival to celebrate outstanding performances by dogs in movies. |
| Passage de Vénus | A six second long "film" made in 1876, consisting of plates capturing the1874 transit of Venus. Currently rated a 6.8 onIMDb. |
| Patterson–Gimlin film | Bigfoot's most famous appearance. |
| Pennin Manathai Thottu | A 2000 Tamil film where some song lyrics misheard into English went viral on YouTube in 2007, as "Benny Lava". |
| Pink Flamingos | A cult 1972 film following "the filthiest person alive", notorious for its deliberately disgusting content and culminating in to protagonist eating dog feces. |
| Plan 9 from Outer Space | The epitome ofso-bad-it's-good cinema. |
| Pulgasari | AGodzilla ripoff where the monster is capitalism, whosedirector waskidnapped at the behest ofKim Jong Il himself to make films for him. |
| Rampart | A 2013Woody Harrelson flick now infamous for its horrible marketing, including possibly the worstAMA of all time. |
| Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa | An all-star cast appear in this badly written, badly animated picture. One of the executive producers apparently gave the animators $500,000 and didn't check their work until he saw it on television. |
| Raza | A drama about a family's roles in theSpanish Civil War that was written and supposingly ghost-directed byFrancisco Franco himself. Takes "history is written by the victors" to a new level. |
| Reefer Madness | A 1930s anti-marijuana propaganda film which failed at its task so badly it became a cult classic within themarijuana subculture. |
| Return of the Ewok | One of the rare cases oflost media within theStar Wars franchise. |
| Roar | Back in the 1970s, a family of African wildlife activists gathered together to make a movie with over 150 untrained big cats, leading to seventy members of the cast and crew getting injured. Its genre? A comedy, of course! |
| The Room Tommy Wiseau | Perhaps theworst film ever created, filled with bad acting, poor dialogue, scenes that go nowhere, crazy behind-the-scenes, and more. And, of course, the man behind it all. |
| Roundhay Garden Scene | The first evermoving picture, which lasted for an epic two seconds. |
| Saving Christmas | The strangest attempt to synthesise the Christian view of Christmas and the modern materialistic view you'll ever see. If you ask starKirk Cameron, it was poorly reviewed because of an atheist smear campaign (and not because it was bad). |
| Self-Portrait | An experimental film byYoko Ono, featuring a 42-minute shot ofJohn Lennon's half-erect penis. A later Lennon/Ono collaboration calledErection is surprisingly unrelated. |
| Sex Lives of the Potato Men | The state of British comedy in the 2000s. |
| Schichlegruber Doing the Lambeth Walk | Was the world's firstvideo mashupBritish WW2 propaganda? |
| Shaken, not stirred | Why007 prefers his martini shaken. |
| Sharknado | Exactly what it implies: Sharks + Tornado = the best damn disaster movie on earth. You better know it's gotan ungodly amount of sequels and a cult following too! |
| Smell-O-Vision | A system designed to enhance films with odors. Used once for the 1960 filmScent of Mystery and never again. |
| Spermageddon | A Pixar-esque animation about the beginning of life, starring Simen the Semen and Cumilla. |
| Stay Puft Marshmallow Man | "I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us!" |
| Stinking badges | Something nobody needs. Possibly the most frequently quoted and misquoted line from a movie ever. |
| Taylor Mead's Ass | AnAndy Warhol film consisting of a single prolonged shot of exactly what the title says. |
| 'Til Death Do Us Blart | Apodcast where a couple of people get together and watchPaul Blart: Mall Cop 2 everyAmerican Thanksgiving. |
| Titanic (1943 film) | The Nazi propaganda version. |
| Twin films | When two studios make the same idea at the same time. |
| The Asylum | The studio that made some of the most (in)famousmockbusters andSharknado as well! Reportedly sometimes subjects its workers to 22-hour workdays and yet has never lost money on a single film (somehow). |
| The Uranus Experiment | An unusually high-concept porn film that contains a real scene of sex in zero-gravity and was nominated for aNebula science fiction award as an act of protest by a group of disgruntled authors. |
| The Worst Movie Ever! | You thoughtZyzzyx Road (see below) was the lowest-grossing movie of all time? Well, buddy, you were wrong, as this movie made only$11! |
| Un día de vida | A Mexican film that performed poorly with domestic audiences, but it became a classic inYugoslavia. |
| United Passions | A $30 million film sponsored byFIFA about how great they are. Came out right after the2015 FIFA corruption case came to light. One of the lowest grossing sports movies of all time. |
| Unsimulated sex | When two actors really have sex for a scene, rather than a simulation. |
| Violent Night | Santa's gonna kick some ass. Directed by the same guy who would go on to makeSpermageddon (see above). |
| Who Killed Captain Alex? | A 2010 Ugandanaction-comedy film produced on a budget of $85. |
| Wilhelm scream | A stock sound effect first recorded in 1951 and used in dozens of films (including sevenStar Wars films, twoLord of the Rings films andKill Bill). |
| Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey | Horror movie about Winnie-the-Pooh, from the director who probably hated that bear as a kid. The film went on to "win" fiveRazzies and now hasits own cinematic universe. |
| Zyzzyx Road | Budget: $1.2 million. Box office: 30 bucks.It makes sense in context. |
| 2005 Connecticut false evacuation alert | An erroneous EAS message which next to nobody actually cared about. |
| 2010 Georgian news report hoax | If you're going to broadcast fake news about the collapse of the government and a Russian invasion, maybe don't do it inthe country where that's most believable, a year and a half after Russiaactually invaded part of said country. |
| 2013 Emergency Alert System hijackings | Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living. |
| 2018 Hawaii false missile alert | The consequences of mistaking a drill as an actual order can bequite serious. |
| Al Murray's Compete for the Meat | A British game show where the top prize is afrozen chicken and the second prize is somesausages. |
| Alternative 3 | An April Fools joke by anITV science show leads many to believe that scientists were being kidnapped to prepare for the colonization of Mars. |
| Amaan Ramazan | A Pakistani reality show where one of the prizes was orphaned babies. |
| Anti-Barney humor | An article for allBarney & Friends haters. |
| Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos | ForgetTurn-On – this never even made it to the end of its only episode. AnAmerican attempt fared little better. |
| Barbara Dex Award | A former unofficial Eurovision award for theworst costume worn by a contestant, named afterBelgium's 1993 representative, who came dead last for wearing a transparent light-green costume that "look[s] like a lampshade". It has now been replaced with the not quite-as-unusualYou're a Vision Award. |
| BBC Green Book | Comedy show broadcasting standards, circa 1949. Avoid the vulgar use of "basket", don't joke about stammering, and whatever you dodon't mention theMcGillycuddy of the Reeks! |
| Bernd das Brot | The mascot of a German children's television network: a chronically depressed loaf of bread who laments his life and enjoys very boring activities. |
| The Canadian Conspiracy | Amockumentary released in 1985 that asserts that Canada is subverting the United States by taking over its media. |
| Captain Midnight broadcast signal intrusion | On a clear night in April 1986, a frustrated electrical engineer jamsHBO's signal to protest against its rates for satellite dish owners in what has been dubbed an act of "video terrorism". |
| Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy | Put a disgraced beauty queen, a former child star, a person famous forbeing on a previous version of the show and her dysfunctional family in a house with a Bollywood star and watch the sparks fly over cooking a chicken dinner and food stocks. |
| Chantelle Houghton | A non-celebrity winner ofseason 4 of the UK'sCelebrity Big Brother, while the producers had her pretend to be the lead singer of a non-existent band. |
| Chris Rock–Will Smith slapping incident | What happens when aG.I. Jane joke goes horribly wrong. At anawards ceremony. On worldwide television. |
| "The City on the Edge of Forever" | How an internal fight betweenthe screenwriter andthe series creator resulted in one of the most celebrated episodes of the originalStar Trek series. |
| Conspiracy 58 | Amockumentary that claimed that the1958 World Cup was never actually held. Despite being revealed as a hoax at the end, people still believed it. |
| Dinner for One | A classic British comedy sketch, virtually unknown in its homeland, that has become the most-repeated television programme in German history. |
| Don't Scare the Hare | A British television game show involving a large robotic hare and an underground forest. It was not popular and lasted only one season. |
| Flanderization | When a TV character becomes a literal caricature of their initial form. |
| Flemish Secession hoax | Our regular programming is now interrupted to declare independence from Belgium. |
| The Force is with Cristal Beer | Imagine waking up to watchStar Wars only to be served beer advertisements. |
| Friday night death slot | Where TV shows go to die. |
| Graggle Simpson | What do you mean, "who"? You know him! He's your favoriteSimpsons character! |
| Greg Packer | A man on the street, no matter which street you're talking about. |
| De Grote Donorshow | An apparently terminally ill woman offers her kidney to one of three lucky patients live on TV. Controversy erupts before broadcast, in which it is then revealed that the whole show is a hoax meant to draw attention to the lack of available organ donors in the Netherlands. |
| Guy Goma BBC interview | A man who went to theBBC for a job interview is instead interviewed onits news channel about theApple Corps v. Apple Computer lawsuit. |
| Heil Honey I'm Home! | Hitler has his own sitcom, with his Jewish neighbors. |
| History of Pop | How a TV program guide becamean actual channel. |
| "Hold on Tight!" (Inside No. 9) | An entirely fake episode of thedark comedyanthology seriesInside No. 9, featuring mocked-up photos and clips for a trailer, designed to trick the show's viewers. |
| "How to Eat with Your Butt" | The plot and the title of thisSouth Park episode are pretty strange, even by the show's standards. |
| Hypothetical | The only quiz containing only hypothetical questions, such as: "You must steal Russell Crowe's shower gel. How do you do it?", "How much money do you have to be paid to eat a packet of crisps every time you have a conversation with someone for a year?", and the stone-cold original: "Big hat or small hat?" |
| I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant | A documentary series on TLC. You can probably guess the plot. |
| IKEA Heights | A parody soap opera shot entirely in Ikea stores in the greater Los Angeles area... without the permission of the retailer. |
| It's So Funny | ANorth Korean comedy show which is anything but funny. |
| I Wanna Marry "Harry" | An American reality show to find"Prince Harry" (really an actor they tried to pass off as him) a wife.Meghan Markle was not a contestant. |
| Roy Jay | Obscure British comedian and subject of an online conspiracy leaving many to question his existence. |
| John Dillermand | A Danish children's series featuring a man who gets into all sorts of (family friendly) trouble with his elongated penis. |
| "The Joy of Sect" | ASimpsons episode that subtly parodiesScientology (and other groups), despitehaving a very prominent member in their cast. South Parkweren't so lucky when they did it more blatantly years later. |
| Judaism inRugrats | A Maccababy's gotta do what a Maccababy's gotta do. |
| Jumping the shark | Metaphor, based on something thatFonzie actually did on an episode ofHappy Days, for the moments when popular TV series lose all credibility and have undeniably entered their twilight years. |
| Michael Larson | Through countless VCR recordings and pattern memorization, this man becamePress Your Luck's biggest winner ever. |
| List ofSaturday Night Live incidents | Everything fromAshlee Simpson's lip-sync fail toAdrien Brody's possibly racist introduction toSean Paul. |
| Max Headroom signal hijacking | TV signals inChicago are twice overpowered on 22 November 1987 by broadcasts featuring a person (possibly a male) disguised as the 1980s virtual TV characterMax Headroom. The source of the broadcasts and the people involved remain unknown. |
| Mikhail Gorbachev Pizza Hut commercial | Thereal former leader of the Soviet Union starred in a Pizza Hut commercial. What else is there to say? |
| My Husband's Not Gay | This reality TV special features Mormons who love men but still marry women. It's also partially aboutconversion therapy. It'll make you want toturn it off, like a light switch by the end. |
| Nasubi Susunu! Denpa Shōnen | A man who became famous after appearing in a reality show in which he was locked in an apartment for 11 months until he won ¥1 million from mail-insweepstakes. Said show also featured, among other things, two men who had to hitchhike their way from theCape of Good Hope to Norway, a challenge to shave the beard ofFidel Castro, and a segment in which baseball fans would only be allowed to eat if their supported team won a game. |
| Naked Jungle | Naturists do an assault course reused from a kids' television show. Considered by some to be the worst television program in Britainever. |
| Odagiri effect | Turns out that women find sexy men on TV shows quite appealing. |
| Phil Silvers Archival Museum | Featuring personal artifacts from the comedian and 24/7 screenings ofThe Phil Silvers Show, in an English city to which he had no connection. |
| Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon | Proof that theisekai genre either is or isn't out of ideas, depending on whom you ask. |
| Reception ofThe Simpsons | An in-depth analysis of whether, when and why people stopped findingThe Simpsons funny. |
| Sailor Mouth | An episode ofSpongeBob SquarePants which featuresprofanity censored by sounds likedolphin calls andfoghorns, and is ironically well-received by fans and critics for its satire, making it a favorite. |
| The Samsonadzes | A ripoff ofThe Simpsons made inGeorgia (the country), although the creator, Shalva Ramishvili, has denied any sorts of plagiarism. Alsoanti-Putin. |
| Servant of the People | A comedy about a professor who overnight becomes president of Ukraine. The thing is that theactor who plays the professor would later become president in real life. |
| Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell | What's wrong Shaun? Why must you be mad as hell? |
| Soap opera rapid aging syndrome | A tragic condition suffered by some young characters onsoap operas. |
| Southern Television broadcast interruption | A news program in England interrupted by an interstellar message from Vrillon, representative of the mighty Ashtar Galactic Command. |
| Space Cadets | Four lucky average Joes got tricked into thinking that they were shot into space. The entire show was, in fact,so planned out that people thought the contestants were actors - basically making the show a prank in itself. |
| Spaghetti-tree hoax | Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best. |
| Star Wars Holiday Special | What do you get when you combineStar Wars andChristmas?One of the worst films of all time. |
| The staff ate it later | A common caption used inJapanese TV programs to indicate that the food wasn't thrown away after filming. |
| Superstar USA | A music competition looking for the worst singers America has to offer. |
| Tomorrow's Pioneers | AHamas-produced children's show co-hosted by various costumed characters, including aMickey Mouse ripoff, who are mostly killed by Jews in some violent manner. |
| Turn-On | An ABC comedy series that was cancelled even before the first episode had finished. |
| "Turner Doomsday Video" | When he foundedCNN,Ted Turner made sure they would be ready for the end of the world. |
| TV pickup | Britons regularly cause massive power surges by simultaneously making tea during program breaks. |
| Uh Oh! | 90's Canadian children's game show, with an energetic wacky host, fun trivia questions, and aleather daddy dumping slime on kids! What could go wrong? |
| Very special episode | A genre of television episodes with controversial life lessons interweaved into the storyline, popularized byBlossom. |
| Wank Week | AChannel 4 project for all those who think there aren't enough jerks on TV. |
| Tommy Westphall | How an autistic child andDetective Munch may be responsible for more than 200 TV series. |
| Wonder Showzen | Sesame Street with the grimdark dial turned up to 11. |
| Who's Your Daddy? | To win $100,000, adoptees have to pick their biological father out of 25 men. |
| Zuiikin' English | Combines gymnastic exercises with the teaching of "useful" English language phrases, such as "Spare me my life!", "I am allergic to penicillin", "I have a bad case of diarrhea" and "Lovely golf weather today!" |
| Action 52 | Inspired by Taiwanese NES multicarts, one businessman sets to create an all-American version with original games... but leaves the devs only 3 months to create 52 of them, resulting in disaster. Also, a tie-in comic book for a franchise that never got started, and a contest where the game is so bugged you can't even enter it. |
| The Adventures of Ninja Nanny & Sherrloch Sheltie | An "educational" PC game from 1993... what it was meant to be educating anyone about, we have no idea. |
| Atari video game burial | Are your video games not selling? Why not do what Atari did and bury them in aNew Mexico landfill? |
| Bad Rats | A mediocre physics puzzler that became perhaps the greatest ever digital gag gift. |
| Bartle taxonomy of player types | What type of gamer are you? |
| Battle of B-R5RB | Aplayer-versus-player battle inEve Online which involved over 7,500 players, lasted 21 hours, and cost over $300,000 worth of in-game currency. |
| Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em | An early "erotic" game for theAtari 2600. Control a pair of nude women trying to catch and eat falling semen. |
| Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing | A racing gameconsidered one of the worst of all time withMetacritic's worst-ever score of 8/100. It hasopponents that don't move, the ability todrive through buildings andaccelerate infinitely in reverse, and a notorious "YOU'RE WINNER !" [sic] message after each race. |
| BMX XXX | A controversial 2002 video game mixing strippers with BMX cycling. |
| Bob's Game | An unreleasedhomebrew game of a game, in a game, within a game. The developer went on a protest against the evil corporation known as "Gantendo". |
| Boong-Ga Boong-Ga | The first arcade game aboutshoving a giant finger up someone's anus. |
| Boss key | Quick, pretend you're working! |
| Breast physics | Follow the bouncing boobs! |
| Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm | A sequel in name only toa classic beat 'em up, based on an unrelated comic book that predates the first game, and programmed by none other thanElon Musk. |
| Casio Loopy | A video game console madespecifically for girls. |
| Calculator | The best video game ever: A $10software calculator. |
| Cat hair mustache puzzle | Considered among the worst puzzles of any video game. |
| Catechumen | Hallelujah! Shoot possessed Roman soldiers with a magical sword until they turn Christian and start to pray. |
| Chex Quest | Doom for ages 6 and up, made as a promotion forChex cereal. |
| Cho Aniki | A long-running series of games from Japan, known for their absurdist humor and homoeroticism, about the quest of sweaty bodybuilders for protein supplements. |
| Communist Mutants from Space | ACold WarSpace Invaders clone in which you do battle with the Mother Creature, driven mad by radioactivevodka. |
| Concord | What happens when you try to make people spend $40plus microtransactions for a genre known for free-to-play fare? a game that spent over 8 years in development, but lasted only a fortnight from its August 2024 release. For perspective: The average lifespan of ahousefly (Musca domestica) is around twice the period this game was available (28 days).Still didn't stop them from making an adaptation, though. |
| Corrupted Blood incident | An unintentional virtual epidemic inWorld of Warcraft, which became an important medical case study. |
| Cow level | A secret level inDiablo II which originated as a player inside joke. |
| Crab Champions | From the guy who brought you "Crab Rave". Be a crab. Have a gun. Shoot up a beach. 🦀. |
| Cubic Ninja | A game that ended up being resold for over $500 due to its unintentional ability to let a3DS runhomebrew. |
| Dance Dance Immolation | It's exactly likeDance Dance Revolution, just with flamethrowers pointed at you. |
| Dark Room Sex Game | Contains explicit sex. Contains no graphics. |
| Development ofDuke Nukem Forever | A chronicle of fourteen years of development hell, complete with four changes of engines, lawsuits, and profane responses to company executives.The end result was judged by critics to have been very much not worth the wait. |
| Don't Buy This | A rare example of truth in advertising. |
| Edge Games | This company decided that the wordedge was so important to them that it started to sue everything video game-related using that word. UntilEA got involved. |
| Eggplant run | A challenge playthrough ofSpelunky in which you carry aneggplant and toss it into the finalboss's face. |
| Ethnic Cleansing | Perhaps the most racist video game ever made. |
| Fakemon | Fan-madePokémon creatures. |
| Family Guy Online | "Holy crap, Lois, this is worse than the time I created an MMORPG that lost a load of money!" Allegedly flopped because players were more interested in quoting their favourite Funny Moments than progressing. |
| Fortnite Holocaust Museum | A virtual museum about the victims of the Holocaust, created inFortnite. |
| Glucoboy | The only handheld game console accessory that usesblood glucose monitoring as a game mechanic. |
| The Goat Puzzle | Goats' contributions to gaming aren't all positive. |
| Goat Simulator | What do you mean you've never fantasised about being a goat? Enough people have to warrant the oddly named sequelGoat Simulator 3. |
| Goodboy Galaxy | A video game made for theGame Boy Advance in 2023 (for its 20th anniversary). |
| The Great Giana Sisters | A game that was withdrawn from the shelves virtually as soon as it went on them. |
| Grezzo 2 | Doom mod that spoofs modern Italian culture, featuring blasphemous references to theCatholic Church, including the main character killing Jesus. Twice. |
| Hatoful Boyfriend | A dating sim where your romantic partners are all sapient birds. |
| Hong Kong 97 | A video game where you play as Bruce Lee's superpowered, heroin-addicted cousin, who has been assigned to kill the entire population of China. The giant head ofDeng Xiaoping has been revived as aweapon of mass destruction and the death screen displays an actual dead body from theYugoslav Wars. |
| "Hot Coffee" | All you had to do wasdo yo' damn girlfriend,CJ! |
| Hunt Down the Freeman | A notoriousHalf-Life fan game that has you "hunting down" the titularGordon Freeman as revenge for supposed attempted assassination of the player character (or so you're led to believe) (Also starring PresidentKeemstar). |
| I Am a Teacher: Super Mario Sweater | Knit with your NES. |
| I Am Bread | You play as bread. |
| "I am Error" | A line line said by a character inZelda II, |
| I Love Bees | A very creative marketing strategy forHalo 2. |
| I Love You, Colonel Sanders! | Adating sim where you romanceKFC founderColonel Sanders. The best part: It'sofficial. |
| Incidente em Varginha | Brazil's first ever first-person shooter is based on aUFO sighting. Also used to trainArmy division soldiers. |
| Incredible Crisis | Just an ordinary day in the life of a family... |
| Islamic Fun | All the classic Muslim-themed educational games you could want. Help build a mosque! Race some rabbits! Defend Lebanon against Israel's1978 invasion! Wait, what? |
| JFK Reloaded | A first-person shooter where the player gets to kill PresidentJohn F. Kennedy and is rewarded for accurately recreatinghis assassination. |
| Kanye Quest 3030 | Just an innocent game about Kanye West. There definitely aren't any secret cults lying around! |
| Kanye Zone | He'sdefinitely in his zone... |
| Killer7 | Play an assassin inhabited by the personas of seven dead hitmen and use their abilities to fight a terrorist group of virus-infected humans while uncovering conspiracies about Japan's interference in US politics and being haunted by your former victims. |
| Laden VS USA | In the early 2000s, a shady ChineseLCD game manufacturer decided that9/11 was the hottest new cash-grab. |
| The Last Hope: Dead Zone Survival | The Last of Us that we have at home. |
| Limbo of the Lost | An adventure game that was pulled from sale over stolen assets. |
| List ofDoom ports | Slay demons on your PC, your console, your phone, your thermostat, your pregnancy test, andso many others. |
| List of video games notable for negative reception | And we were so sureNo Man's Sky would be a hit! |
| LSD: Dream Emulator | The trippiest game in existence. |
| MissingNo. | APokémon species that only appears as the result of a glitch and has since been the subject of manysociological studies. |
| Mister Mosquito | Be a mosquito. |
| Moonbase Alpha | A simulation video game officially published byNASA themselves that is most well known for its built-in text-to-speech function. |
| Mother 3 fan translation | An unofficial translation of a never-translated game that's become a force all of its own. |
| The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog | As an April Fools' joke,Sega released a freevisual novel where you have to investigate the murder ofSonic. It's sweeter than it sounds. |
| Ninja Golf | Hole in your enemies! |
| Nuclear Gandhi | According to an urban legend, a bug inCivilization makesMahatma Gandhi prone to start a nuclear war. More recent games in the series made it a feature. |
| Overwatch and pornography | Yes, many people would like to "Nerf This!" |
| Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors | A compendium of games to trick your friends, includingDesert Bus, a painstakingly realistic eight-hour bus journey fromTucson, Arizona, toLas Vegas. |
| Pepsiman | Save people from thirst! But not from tooth decay. |
| PETA satirical browser games | Bored of playing your usual video games? TryPETA'sSuper Chick Sisters andSuper Tofu Boy, they will definitely get you to work. |
| Phalanx | Who knew that putting an old man playing abanjo on the box of an unrelated game would make for effective marketing? |
| Piglet's Big Game | From beforeBlood and Honey, here's Piglet in a survival horror game that was rediscovered after 21 years and compared toResident Evil andSilent Hill. |
| Playing History 2 - Slave Trade | An educational game that featured a minigame where you would fit slaves into a slave ship likeTetris pieces. |
| Plumbers Don't Wear Ties | This visual novel/dating sim got a lot of attention after it was featured in an episode ofThe Angry Video Game Nerd. |
| Pokémon and pornography | Hey guys, did you know that in terms of male human and female Pokémon breeding, Vaporeon is the most compatible Pokémon for humans? (seebestiality) |
| Pokémon Uranium | Afangame set in a region of thePokémon universe that was victim to a nuclear disaster. |
| Polybius | An arcade game that supposedly causes its players to go insane. |
| Pyongyang Racer | The height ofNorth Korea's gaming industry tries to lull you into travelling there. |
| Quest for Bush | A first-person shooter, released by al-Qaeda's propaganda arm, with George W. Bush as its final boss. |
| Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon | The anti-smokingSNES run-and-gun game. Publisher Raya also had you covered fordiabetes- orasthma-based games. |
| Saeko: Giantess Dating Sim | A very serious game with a very serious story that'sdefinitely totally unrelated to the developer'sfetishes. |
| Seaman | A game where you take care of a fish with a human head while being guided byLeonard Nimoy. |
| Sex with Hitler | Want to get frisky with the Führer? |
| Sex with Stalin | Seize the means of (re)production! |
| Shobon no Action | Aplatformer known for its levels designed to cause extreme frustration. |
| Simlish | The language spoken by characters inThe Sims. |
| Soda Drinker Pro | The gamified menial task of drinking soda that contains a hidden surrealist minigame compilation. |
| Sonic Dreams Collection | This surreal fangame, said to be unfinishedSonic the Hedgehog games on theDreamcast, pulls no punches to the notoriousSonic fandom. |
| Spanish for Everyone! | "Let's make our educational game end in a drug cartel murder, nobody will play it anyway!" – the developers, probably. |
| Special Force | Hezbollah recreated its battles against Israel as a first-person shooter... twice. See alsoEthnic Cleansing. |
| Stalin vs. Martians | If you likedAbraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (see Film), you'll love this unrelated project! |
| The Story of Kamikuishiki Village | A strategy game created by the same people responsible forHong Kong 97 where you play asShoko Asahara and the end goal is to carry out theTokyo subway sarin gas attack. Often mistakenly believed to have been created byAsahara's cult themselves as propaganda. |
| Super Columbine Massacre RPG! | A gamified(?) recreation of theColumbine massacre, featuring a Hell sequence where the perpetrators fightSouth Park-style Satan. Allegedly theDawson College shooter's favorite game. |
| Takeshi's Challenge | A deliberately unfair and confusing video game made byTakeshi Kitano, noted video game hater. |
| Tetris effect | A psychological effect whereTetris players start arranging blocks in the real world. |
| Thatcher's Techbase | A mod ofDoom II where the main goal is to kill an undeadMargaret Thatcher. |
| The Thompson Twins Adventure | One of the only video games to ever be released via vinyl record. |
| Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion | A young turnip goes on a quest to evade taxes; see also its sequelTurnip Boy Robs a Bank. |
| Universal Paperclips | A machine learning algorithm is taskedonly with optimizing paperclip production. |
| Untitled Goose Game | A game where you can bother the inhabitants of an English village. As a goose. |
| Yeah! You Want "Those Games," Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let's See You Clear Them! | You ever wanted to play those minigames that mobile game ads show but are not in the actual games? Well, now you can! |
| You Have to Burn the Rope | ...and doing the titular task takes about half as long as listening to the credits song. |
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| 2 Hours Doing Nothing | An Indonesian kid who gained fame by staring into his camera for two hours. |
| 6-7 | Say that again. |
| 100 men versus a gorilla | Who would win? |
| 2014 Mark-1 Plumbing truck incident | When your business goes viral... on a pickup with a mounted Soviet-made anti-aircraft gun. |
| A group where we all pretend to be boomers | A group of Facebook friends who decided to pretend to be elderly. |
| ai_sponge | ATwitch andYouTube channel that livestreams fictional episodes ofSpongeBob SquarePants made with AI, down to the script and voices. |
| All your base are belong to us | A phrase that originated in the 1989 video gameZero Wing and sparked an Internet phenomenon in 2001 and 2002. |
| Babiniku | The phenomenon of men on the Internet depicting themselves as anime women, often without using voice changers. |
| The Backrooms | A very strange online urban legend originating from an image taken from someone renovating a furniture store into a hobby shop. |
| Bernie Sanders' Dank Meme Stash | AFacebook group dedicated to memes about American politicianBernie Sanders. |
| Bogdanoff twins | A pair of French twin brothers known for their extravagant looks and (pseudo)scientific claims; which made them the subject of a long-lasting internet meme involving aliens, secret knowledge andbear markets. |
| Boneghazi | A witch digs up human corpses and sells them online. Tumblr turns it into identity politics. |
| Bonnie BlueLily Phillips | These two in a single day had Intercourse with a grand combined total of 1,158 men. Needless to say,Guinness does not do these kinds of records. |
| Boobquake | Female users ofsocial networking websites agree to determine whether their scandalous clothing can causeearthquakes. |
| Bowsette | The Internet was once titillated over thisBowser-Peach fusion (seeRule 63). |
| Brain rot | Ever heard of "rizz", "unc" or "mid"? It's probably brainrot. |
| British scientists | According to Russian Internet users, the height of British scientific research is at the University of the Bleedin' Obvious. |
| The Bus Uncle | AHong Kong resident gets into an uncomfortably tense argument with a fellow passenger—all caught on video. |
| Brony fandom | A subculture composed of adult, mostly male, individuals who are fans ofa little girls' cartoon. |
| Carstuckgirls.com | An erotic(?) website devoted to women trying to free their cars from various obstacles. |
| Chad | From theincel forums comes this whole new slang. |
| Cinnamon challenge | Unless you enjoylung damage, please do not try this at home. Or anywhere else. |
| Clickbait | Admins HATE Him: Ordinary Wikipedia Editor Creates Page, Discovers 10 Weird Tricks For Making Quality Articles!(You Won't BELIEVE Number 4!) |
| Consumption of Tide Pods | Ever thought a Tide pod looked kind of like candy? Apparently you're not alone. |
| Countryballs | A comic genre with balls and other bits for different countries doing whatreal countries do. |
| Crush on Obama | That's great. |
| Cursed image | Low quality images with a mysterious aura, sometimes with a comedic effect. |
| Cute cat theory of digital activism | "Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats." —Ethan Zuckerman |
| Dancing baby | One of the very first internet memes: a weird 3D baby dancing in 1996. |
| da share z0ne | Social justice skeletons?ʜᴇʟʟ ʏᴇᴀʜ!!! |
| DashCon | ATumblr convention where the organisers unexpectedly announced that the hotel needed $17,000 extra - and that was just the first day. Anyone fancy an extra hour in theball pit? |
| Dave rule | "Dave-to-girl ratio" as gender balance criterion. |
| Doge | very readers, such article, much wiki |
| Depths of Wikipedia | A social media account that's basically this Project page (most of the time). |
| Elsagate | Here kids, watch theseYouTube videos withElsa andSpider-Man, I'm sure nothing inappropriate will be on them... |
| Every time you masturbate... God kills a kitten | If that's not a good enough reason why you shouldn't, I don't know what is. |
| Extremely online | A state that everybody reading this can probably relate to. |
| Florida Man | Superhero native to the state ofFlorida best known for his frequent run-ins with law enforcement and intoxicating substances. |
| Glossary of 2020s slang | There's no way thatGen Z andGen Alpha kids are saying all of these words!! |
| Godwin's law | Every long, protracted online discussion always ends with comparisons of others to Hitler. Really... |
| Goncharov | The 1973Martin Scorsese classic... that was entirely made up by the Internet 49 years later. |
| Googling | Google created a verb that is really in the dictionary. |
| Half-Life: Full Life Consequences | The worstHalf-Life fan fiction ever written, later adapted to video. |
| Hampster Dance | A web page featuring dancing hamsters set to music. |
| "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point" | A 2018ClickHole article about a truly devastating moment, complete with astock image of a random Spanish man. |
| Hiroshi Abe's home page | Website of a Japanese actor, which is used to test new gadgets' performance to run old webpages. |
| Homunculus loxodontus | A bizarre blob-like creature known in Russia as "The One Who Waits". |
| Sam Hyde | A transgressive American comedian blamed for numerous terrorist attacks and killings. |
| I Feel Fantastic | A surrealist viral video fromYouTube in 2004. |
| Instagram egg | An image of any old egg...is what this egg would be if it didn't take overInstagram and become the most-liked post on the internet until December 2022. |
| It's Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers | A viral online essay celebrating the joys of Autumn. |
| Italian brainrot | Proof that it's not your imagination; memesare getting worse. |
| Jar'Edo Wens hoax | A Wikipedia hoax about a fictionalAustralian Aboriginal deity that lasted for nearly a decade. |
| The Jerma985 Dollhouse | Streamer sets about making an interactive version ofThe Truman Show with himself as the main character. |
| Joe Biden (The Onion) | What if Joe Biden was actually pretty rad? |
| Josh fight | The face-off of the century to determine who could keep the name Josh. |
| Eduard Khil | Our eternal Mr. Trololo. |
| Lasagna Cat | Live-action reenactments ofGarfield strips followed by absurd concluding pieces, including a mouse performing oral sex on Garfield, Odie committing suicide, andJohn Blyth Barrymore musing over a single strip for a whole hour. Don't even get me started on the ending to "Sex Survey Results"... |
| Lenin was a mushroom | A hoax thatVladimir Lenin consumed large quantities ofpsychedelic mushrooms and eventually became a mushroom himself. |
| The Library of Babel (website) | A digital library hosting 1.956 × 101,834,097 books. |
| Poot Lovato | Demi Lovato's long lost twin sister? (Well, not really...) |
| Markovian Parallax Denigrate | Three random words that caused over 25 years of mystery. |
| Meow Wars | A flame war onUsenet that lasted for over 2 years. |
| Microsoft acquisition of the Roman Catholic Church | Sadly for those who were hoping for an online Eucharist, this was an early Internet hoax. |
| Miguxês | A brief guide toPortugueseInternet slang. |
| Namuwiki | AKorean online encyclopedia just like Wikipedia...based inParaguay. |
| North American Fella Organization | An internet meme and social media movement which fightsRussian internet propaganda throughshitposting andtrolling. |
| NBACentel | A satirical news page on X (formerly Twitter) that has tricked many people, including many notable basketball players, into believing what they say.Sounds familiar? |
| Neuro-sama | Who said aVTuber even needs a human behind it? To that idea, Neuro says "(Filtered)". |
| No Nut November | ...and its antithesis, Destroy Dick December. |
| Nothing, Forever | A procedurally generated sitcom that parodiesSeinfeld. Apparently inspiredai_sponge (see above). |
| Nukemap | New York got blown up by theTsar Bomba! Well, at least you can do that in this. |
| Numa Numa | Or how a fat kid dancing to theO-Zone song "Dragostea din tei" in front of his computer became very popular. |
| Oddly satisfying videos | Have you ever wondered whyslime gets such a pull on people? |
| Omission of New Zealand from maps | Antipodean cartographic incompleteness: so rife that it's become a meme. |
| Omission of Tasmania from maps of Australia | |
| On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog | Little-known fact: all articles on this page were written by a team ofGolden Retrievers. And thanks to theanonymity of the Internet, you didn't know until now. |
| OS-tan | A small Internet phenomenon where certain types of software (including various Microsoft and Linux operating systems) are depicted as younganime women. |
| Peak beard | The rise and fall of human beards. |
| Pepe the Frog | The true story of how a webcomic character became synonymous with thealt-right. |
| PewDiePie vs T-Series | A competition between twoYouTube channels to be the most subscribed channel. |
| Philosophical zombie | I am dead, therefore I eat brains. |
| Press F to pay respects | Have you ever wondered why you might see the letter "F" being spammed on pages about someone's death? |
| r/BreadStapledToTrees | People do an odd activity of stapling bread to trees as a hobby and post it online in the nature of the early internet. (IsNOT to be confused with r/BreadTapedToTrees.) |
| RentAHitman.com | A website where people keep incriminating themselves despite it being an obvious parody. |
| Rickrolling | Careful: that link you're about to click on might take you to a video ofRick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". |
| Rule 34 | "If it exists, there is Internet porn of it." |
| Rule 63 | Rule 34's best buddy, one of them can usually lead to the other "If it's a character, there's a genderbent version of it". |
| Mark V. Shaney | A fakeUsenet user whose computer-generated postings were created usingMarkov chain techniques. |
| Serbia Strong | A Serbian music video deemedIslamophobic,Croatophobic, and nationalistic, which became an Internet meme among alt-right and far-right groups. |
| Shitposting | 🗿 |
| Shock site | Don't look! (No, really.) |
| Shrek fandom | Maybe "fandom" isn't the correct word? |
| Sitting and Smiling | AYouTube series in which a man sits and smiles for four hours, documenting his descent into inevitable madness. |
| Skibidi Toilet | One of the most popular web series among the children of today is a series of animatedYouTube Shorts about the battle for world domination between a race of toilets with human heads and a race of humans with cameras for heads. |
| Spiders Georg | A man that lives in a cave and eats 65 million spiders every day. |
| SpongeBob SquarePants fan theories | Isthe show's cast a representation of thecardinal sins or mental disorders?I guess we'll never know… |
| Storm Area 51 | AnInternet meme which, as all great things, began onFacebook and spiralled a bit of out control, and of course Wikipedians couldn't be stopped in making it its own article. |
| Suntukan sa Ace Hardware | Fight Club taking place at a hardware store of all places. |
| Techno Viking | When the protagonist of a meme sues its creator. |
| Ted Cruz–Zodiac Killer meme | A mock conspiracy theory gone wild. |
| Timberwolves Brasil | A Twitter account run by aMinnesota Timberwolves fan with very...interesting tastes. |
| Time Cube | The personal website of a schizophrenic old man who claimed that time is "cubic" in nature and that all of modern science is a lie. |
| Tumblr Sexyman | What do youmean you don't findSans Undertale sexy? |
| John Titor | A purportedtime traveller from the year 2036. |
| This Man | The dreamiest man you'll ever meet. |
| Tourist guy | The picture of a Hungarian man on9/11. |
| Twitter suspensions | Tweeting's not a right, it's a privilege. |
| Uncyclopedia | Wikipedia but with almost 99 percent moreOscar Wilde! |
| uwu | *notices ur Wikipedia article* owo what's this? uwu |
| Very erotic very violent | See alsovery good very mighty. |
| Wikiracing | The competitive arts of trying to navigate from one Wikipedia page to another. |
| Wiki rabbit hole | Starting from an article aboutvideo cameras, after a few clicks you start reading aboutscience fiction, then you start reading aboutconspiracy theories, then you start reading aboutpolitics, then aboutmodern history, then aboutlanguages, then aboutancient history, then aboutmodern history again, then abouturban legends, etc, etc... eventually you land on aWikipedia project page andgo insane. |
| wikiFeet | The world's largest image sharing website devoted tofoot fetishism. |
| WTFPL | A public domain software license whose abbreviation stands for "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License". |
| WikipediaStar Trek Into Darkness debate | Is it "into" or "Into"? Listed atWikipedia's lamest edit wars. |
| Yaoi paddle | A weapon to be wielded only by a truekenshi. |
| YouTube Poop | When you edit videos ofmass media to make them more humorous. Ironically, the first video to be known as a YouTube poop was uploaded on December 2004, months before YouTube's launch in February 2005 and thefirst official video in April 2005. |
See alsoList of Internet phenomena.
| Balloonfest '86 | One of Cleveland's most infamous celebrations. |
| DetroitBridgerton Themed Ball | Ah yes,Bridgerton, the critically acclaimed Netflix series that includes pole dancers,Soulja Boy, and fake stuffed dogs. |
| Kanamara Matsuri | A phallus festival in Kawasaki, Japan. |
| Lapland New Forest | It ruined Christmas 2008 in Hampshire. |
| Masturbate-a-thon | It's okay – it's for charity! |
| Mexico City Alebrije Parade | Parade and contest of giantalebrijes ("colorful monsters"). |
| Miss Bumbum | An annual beauty pageant to find Brazil's best buttocks. |
| Naki Sumo Crying Baby Festival | Sumo wrestlers carry infants, competing to see whose baby cries first, as a loud cry symbolizes health and is believed to ward off evil spirits. |
| Testicle festival | "Would you like to supersize those?" |
| Willy's Chocolate Experience | A world of pure imagination... if you can only imagine empty warehouses staffed by underpaid actors, where the main attraction is lemonade. |
| All in a Row | A play about a child on the autism spectrum... portrayed as an inhuman-looking puppet who makes his family's lives miserable. |
| Cherry Sisters | The first truly "so bad it's good" act, whose vaudeville performances drew packed houses of audiences who just wanted to hurl abuse at them. Sued newspapers for printing a negative review of them, and lost. |
| The Elvis Dead | Evil Dead II retold in the style of Elvis Presley, later released on VHS in 2020. "I gonna build a groovychainsaw arm". |
| In My Life | Brain cancer, OCD, a child killed by a drunk driver... all subjects made light of in this surreal musical bythe guy who wrote "You Light Up My Life". |
| Jahrhundertring | The centenary production oftheRing cycle was transported to theIndustrial Revolution, with the gods as capitalist fat cats and the Rhinemaidens as prostitutes. Near-riots ensued. |
| Jerry Springer: The Opera | This musical has got it all, from God and Satan to theKKK. |
| Moose Murders | A bizarre play that became a byword for the worst of Broadway. Signature moment: anapparently-unplanned scene where a paraplegic man wrapped in bandages gets up to kick a man in a moose costume in the crotch. |
| Mortal Kombat: Live Tour | A family friendly adapation of a violent video game. To make things even better, there was audience participation. |
| Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark | At $75 million, the most expensiveBroadway musical, which is infamous for its troubled production history and cast member accidents. Also holds the record for the largest number of preview showings (182) before the official opening. |
| Alcohol-infused whipped cream | Do you like to squirt whipped cream right into your mouth from the bottle? This should spice that right up. |
| Ant egg soup | A nostalgic soup with a "distinctive, sour pop". |
| Ayds | Ayds was a great way to lose weight, until the mid-1980s... |
| Bacon Explosion | Not as dangerous as it sounds. Unless you're a vegan of course. |
| Bacon ice cream | They said we were mad... they said we could never combine the world's two greatest foods. They were wrong! |
| Banana production in Iceland | Weirder thanfermented shark? |
| Biangbiang noodles | A type of Chinese noodle whose name is written with an incredibly complex Chinese character. |
| Boneless Fish | A frozen fish scaled, gutted and deboned, then glued to its original shape using a food-gradeenzyme. |
| British Rail sandwich | A culinary match to the quality of the train service. |
| Carmine | A commonfood dye manufactured from insects. |
| Casu martzu | Italian "maggot cheese" – cheese designed to be eaten while it is infested withcheese fly larvae. |
| Century egg | A Chinese dish which involves preserving a duck, chicken or quail egg for several weeks to several months before eating. |
| Chả rươi | Vietnamese dish made from thepolychaete worm. |
| Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats | Notable for the huge variety of racist names given to them all over the world. |
| Chubby bunny | A common (but sometimes lethal) game played withmarshmallows. |
| Cockle bread | Bread made by English women in the seventeenth century that involved kneading and pressing against the woman's buttocks. |
| Competitive eating | In which the main goal is the quick and vast consumption of food. |
| Cookie cake | Schrödinger's dessert. |
| Deep-fried Mars bar | A Scottish delicacy, often touted as an example oftheir diet's unhealthiness. See alsodeep fried Twinkies,deep fried pizza, anddeep fried Oreos. |
| Dilberito | A vegan burrito promoted byDilbert. "Because of the veggie and legume content, three bites of the Dilberito made you fart so hard your intestines formed a tail." -Dilbert creatorScott Adams |
| Dishwasher salmon | Salmon cooked using the heat from adishwasher. |
| Charles Domery | A Polish soldier noted for his unusually large appetite. While imprisoned in England, he remained ravenous despite being put on ten times the rations of other inmates, eating the prison cat, at least twenty rats and, on a regular basis, the prison candles. |
| Doug | Its record as "world's biggest potato" was denied due to mistaken identity. |
| Durian | King of fruits. King of smells? |
| Edible underwear | Yes, this exists. |
| Engastration | Dishes consisting of animals stuffed into each other.Turducken andwhole stuffed camel are prominent examples. |
| Eyes (cheese) | There are eyes in the cheese, but no cheese in the eyes. |
| Faggots | The only food you can't say you don't like. |
| Flies' graveyard | A delicacy in the United Kingdom. |
| Fool's Gold Loaf | One warmed, hollowed-out loaf of bread filled with a jar each of creamy peanut butter and grape jelly, and a pound of bacon. Reportedly a favorite ofElvis. |
| Freedom fries | "I know what'll teach France for not wanting to invade Iraq... we'll rename our food!" -Bob Ney, 2003 |
| Fried spider | Exactly as it sounds – and a regional delicacy inCambodia. |
| Ray's Pizza | Which Ray's Pizza was the first? No one knows! |
| Fruit ketchup | Plum ketchup, anyone? |
| Adolf Hitler and vegetarianism | Hitler believed that a vegetarian diet could both alleviate his personal health problems and spiritually renew the Aryan race. He also strongly opposed animal cruelty (didn't stop him from doing worse things to humans, though). |
| Hedgehog Flavour Crisps | If you think that usual crisps are boring, try this. |
| Hitler bacon | Can it possibly bekosher? |
| Hottest chili pepper | Gettin' silly with chili. |
| Hufu | For all you vegetarian cannibals out there, thetofu product designed to look and taste like human flesh. |
| Human placentophagy | The consumption of a newborn's placenta is common among mammals; humans do it too. |
| Kit Kats in Japan | There have been more than 300 limited-edition seasonal and regional flavors of Kit Kats produced in Japan since 2000. |
| Ketchup as a vegetable | Makes junk food seem healthier. |
| Kosher locust | Can Jews eat grasshoppers? |
| Kuai Kuai culture | In Taiwan, it is considered fortuitous to place a particular brand of snack next to machines. |
| Latke–Hamantash Debate | The debate of the century that began in 1946 and has never been resolved. About Jewish food. |
| List of Oreo varieties | Ranging from as obscure asMississippi mud pie to ones dedicated to celebrities such asLady Gaga. |
| Luther Burger | Described as a "cardiologist's worst nightmare". |
| Lychee and Dog Meat Festival | Vegans are the only group who can oppose this festival without any fear of hypocrisy. |
| McWords | McDonald's has their own McLanguage now. |
| Michel Lotito | Ate 45 door hinges, 18 bicycles, 15 shopping carts, aCessna 150, and much more. |
| Milbenkäse | A type of German cheese containing live mites, which are eaten along with the cheese. |
| Monkey brains | A supposed delicacy that has been made famous through films. |
| None pizza with left beef | An infamous online pizza order. |
| Nutellagate | In whichColumbia University students stoleNutella at a rapid rate. |
| Old Dry Keith | English man makes driest sandwich ever, becomes Chinese sensation. |
| Alferd Packer | Before Dahmer there was Packer... |
| Pieing | A slapstick stunt, or a kind of political protest. And there's even alist of victims. |
| Products produced fromThe Simpsons | Fictional trademarks gone real. |
| Rhubarb Triangle | A recipe or a dangerous area to fly through? |
| Roadkill cuisine | Yes,Skunk a la Michelin sounds tasty to some people. |
| Salmon chaos | In which a lot of Taiwanese people changed their names to "Salmon" to get free sushi. |
| Šakotis | Rotisserie cake, anyone? |
| San-nakji | Small octopuses eaten alive with sesame oil. |
| Sealed crustless sandwich | Apatentedpeanut butter and jelly sandwich. |
| Seriously McDonalds | Not seriously, in fact, because this new policy that black customers would pay more at McDonald's was an obvious (but believed) hoax. |
| Small sausage in large sausage | The Taiwanese version of a hot dog, not anything else you might be thinking. |
| Snickers salad | A dessert salad that's "worthy of a church picnic" according tothe Indianapolis Star. |
| Spotted dick | Actually a type of pudding. |
| Square watermelon | Rather expensive and very much inedible. |
| Stargazy pie | ACornish fish pie that looks back at you. |
| Star Spangled Ice Cream | Patriotic ice cream to own the liberals. Choose from "Smaller Governmint", "I hate the French Vanilla", or "Bill Clinton Im-peach". |
| Stinky tofu | Fermented soybean curd is apparently a delicacy for some people. One external link describes its scent as "a used tampon baking in the desert." |
| Superman (ice cream flavor) | It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... ice cream? |
| Surströmming | A Swedish dish consisting of fermented herring, said to have the worst smell in the world. |
| Takeru Kobayashi | A slightly built Japanese competitive eater. He has consumed 63 Nathan's Famous hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes and holds a host of eating records for other foods. |
| Testicles as food | Available fresh during castration season. |
| Third-pound burger | Infamously flopped because Americans believed that ⅓ was smaller than ¼, not bigger. |
| Toast sandwich | An English dish with an "extravagance of blandness". Add salt and pepper to taste. |
| La Tomatina | A gigantic food fight with a ham-topped greased pole as the start. |
| Sonya Thomas | What weighs 105 pounds (48 kg) and eats more hot dogs in 12 minutes than most people do all summer? |
| United States military chocolate | Originally designed to taste "little better than a boiled potato." Not much has changed. |
| Unusually shaped vegetable | "While some examples are just oddly shaped, others are heralded for their amusing appearance, often representing a body part such as the buttocks." |
| Vantage loaf | The bread that makes abaker's dozen. |
| Virgin boy egg | Eggs cooked with the help of young boys' urine. |
| Volkswagen currywurst | Volkswagen's best-selling product isn't cars, but sausages. |
| "Who Ate All the Pies?" | Achant sung byfootball fans inEngland andScotland, aimed at supposedly overweight footballers, officials or opposing supporters. |
| 1985 diethylene glycol wine scandal | ThatSimpsons episode about antifreeze in the wine was based on a true story. |
| Beer can pyramid | Orbeeramid, if you prefer. |
| Beer goggles | Alcohol makes you more attractive (that is, if you're not the one drinking it). |
| Carmona Wine Urn | They say a fine wine gets better with age, but this is ridiculous. The 2000-year-old world record holder, and its merely 1700-year-old predecessor. |
| Speyer wine bottle | |
| Civet coffee | Not coffee made fromcivets, but rather from ordinary coffee beans the civet has, well, excreted. |
| Cock ale | A type of ale that has a bag stuffed with a parboiled, skinned and gutted chicken later added. |
| Cola wars | A marketing battle betweenCoca-Cola andPepsi. |
| Diet Coke and Mentos eruption | Diet Coke +Mentos =geyser. |
| Est! Est!! Est!!! di Montefiascone | Apparently a very exciting wine, though according to some, it's not worth the hype... |
| Fucking Hell | A German beer named after the Austrian village ofFucking. (It was renamed Fugging in 2021, so there goes the fun...) |
| Ganesha drinking milk miracle | Hindu statues drinking milk. |
| Grapefruit juice–drug interactions | Be careful – that delicious food item could be dangerous to prescription-drug users. |
| Gustav III of Sweden's coffee experiment | When a king of Sweden tried (and failed) to prove that coffee could kill. |
| H2NO | Why drink tap water, when you can pay to have a cool, refreshing glass of Coca-Cola or freshly chilled bottled tap water? |
| If-by-whiskey | A famous speech successfully both attacking and defendingbooze. |
| ISO 3103 | TheISO standard cup of tea. |
| OpenCola | The world's firstopen-source beverage. |
| Pepsi Number Fever | Large-scale riots in the Philippines in 1992 that led to the deaths of five people. The cause? A failed PepsiCo promotional event. |
| Pussy | The drink's pure, it's your mind that's the problem. |
| Snake wine | A type of Vietnamese wine that includes a whole venomous snake in the bottle. |
| Vaskning | Allegedly, showing off wealth in a Swedish nightclub by pouring champagne down the kitchen sink. |
| Vodka eyeballing | He's looking at you, kid. |
| ? (bistro) | Quite unusual for aSerbian bistro to be named after only just aquestion mark... |
| Claudia Sanders Dinner House | A restaurant founded byColonel Sanders and his wife Claudia after he became unhappy with changes atKFC, which was in turn sued by KFC. |
| Conflict Kitchen | APittsburgh take-out restaurant that exclusively served ethnic foods from countries in which the United States was in conflict. |
| Cross Cafe | A Hitler-themed Indian restaurant, formerly known as "Hitlers' Cross" [sic]. |
| Dinner in the Sky | Enjoy a delicious meal—suspended 150 feet (46 m) in the air. |
| Fortezza Medicea restaurant | Elegant, fine dining in a high-security prison. |
| Hamburger University | WhereMcDonald's employees learn their stuff. |
| Heart Attack Grill | Noted for its 8,000-calorie "Quadruple Bypass Burger". It also lives up to its name. |
| Heladería Coromoto | Want a scoop of macaroni and cheese ice cream? How about beef? Chili? Cheese? Crab? Mushrooms in wine? British Airways? Viagra Hope? |
| Ithaa | The world's first underwater restaurant. |
| Jewish-American patronage of Chinese restaurants | For lack of dairy products, proximity in inner cities, and open hours during Christian holidays. |
| Kayabukiya Tavern | A Japanese restaurant where guests are served by employed monkeys. |
| Loving Hut | A vegan restaurant run by a cult. Get to watch "Supreme Master TV" in nearly all of their locations! |
| MaDonal | AMcDonald's knock-off inIraq. |
| McDonald's ice cream machine | Always broken. |
| McDonald's urban legends | Is that worm meat in your Big Mac? |
| Modern Toilet Restaurant | A restaurant chain whose furniture and decor is based on – yes – toilets. |
| Mom's Spaghetti | A restaurant opened byEminem in Detroit, named after a lyric from one of his ownsongs. |
| Original Spanish Kitchen | Suddenly and unexpectedly closed in 1961, with its contents remaining untouched for decades afterward, giving rise tourban legends about its proprietors' fate. |
| Pizza Pacaya | A restaurant inGuatemala that makes its pizza using an active volcano as its oven. |
| Pyongyang | A restaurant chain whose sole proprietor is theGovernment of North Korea. |
| Trump Burger | Ironically, the owner was arrested by ICE in 2025. |
| The Shed at Dulwich | TripAdvisor's #1 fake restaurant. |
| Wiener King | It's all in the name. |
| 1956 Olympic flame hoax | Why theOlympic Flame is pants. |
| Apopudobalia | Ancient Roman soccer (but not really). |
| Artistic roller skating | All the grace and charm of figure skating...but with roller skates. |
| Barefoot running | Why is there an entire article devoted to running without shoes? |
| Bat and trap | An English bat-and-ball pub game. |
| Bladderball | Yale University's contribution to the world of team sports. |
| Bog snorkelling | The noble art of competitivesnorkelling through cold, noxious bog water. |
| Bottle-kicking | A ruleless drunken rugby-like sport played every Easter Monday since the 1700s inHallaton,Leicestershire. |
| British baseball | Anintermediate species between cricket and baseball played in the hinterlands of Wales and Western England. |
| Butt Fumble | Be careful where you run with that ball,Mark. |
| Chess boxing | A sport that alternates rounds ofspeed chess andboxing. |
| David Arquette in World Championship Wrestling | "When you're out of ideas, make an outsider actor your World Champion", said no one ever. |
| Donkey basketball | A wild twist on a classic American sport. In this version, all players are required to ride or be touching a donkey to be play. |
| Dot-com commercials during Super Bowl XXXIV | "We haven't made any revenue this quarter? Let's spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl commercial! There's no way we canlose!" |
| A drive into deep left field by Castellanos | If I had a nickel for every timeNick Castellanos hit a home run during the announcement of a tragic event, I would have 10 nickels. Which is kind of a lot. |
| Dwarf-tossing | A sporting competition where paddeddwarfs are thrown by competitors. |
| Dwile flonking | A sport that gives a new meaning to the term "drinking game". |
| Elephant polo | Variant of polo that is played while riding elephants, mostly played by royals in Rajasthan. |
| Eton wall game | A sport played annually onSt. Andrew's Day on a 5-by-110-metre (16 ft × 361 ft) field. The last goal was scored in 1909. |
| Extreme ironing | A sport whereby participants take an ironing board to a remote location and iron a few items of clothing. |
| Fair catch kick | A little-known way to score points in American football left over from rugby. EvenBill Belichick wouldn't call one in Super Bowl LI. |
| Fierljeppen | AFrisian sport where the objective is to jump over a trench. |
| Football tennis | Wimbledon meetsWembley... inCzechoslovakia. |
| Gillidanda | In this Indian game, instead of hitting a ball with a stick, players use a stick (danda) to hitanother stick (gilli). |
| Laser Space Cannon | A purple beam shooting out of the roof of theSacramento Kings' arena, lit after every Kings home win, that became a symbol of the team that broke theNBA's longest-ever playoff drought. |
| Lawn mower racing | Leaves the lawn in a very poor condition. |
| Mall walking | Usually done with larger groups of senior citizens. |
| Mass Transit incident | What happens when you combine aprofessional wrestler prone to violence with a 17 year old that had lied about his age and experience? |
| Mythical national championship | When is a champion not exactly a champion? |
| New Testament athletic metaphors | Blessed are the healthy in heart... |
| Pelota purépecha | You've heard of ice hockey, but how about fire hockey? |
| Public image of Roman Reigns | Pushed to the top of the wrestling world, he was rejected by fans, but WWE kept trying, and trying, and trying for years on end. By 2019, Reigns was the most hated man in wrestling, despite being (allegedly) the good guy. |
| Quidditch (real-life sport) | An international real-life sport, without magic objects. |
| Scorigami | A scoring combination that has never happened in a league's history. |
| Ski ballet | Skiers doingflips and spins on a slope. A smooth slope. Wearing skis. |
| Smiggin Holes 2010 Winter Olympic bid | During the2002 Winter Olympics,the two Australian comedians who gave the world Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat (see "Animals in sports" below) launched a bid to host the2010 Winter Olympics inNew South Wales, Australia. |
| SpoGomi | A sport where teams have to collect as much litter as possible. |
| Sports-related curses | A variety of excuses for bad performance. |
| Stoolball | An ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders. |
| Traditions and anecdotes associated with the Stanley Cup | Anice hockey trophy with a long history of abuse, superstition, and tests ofbuoyancy. |
| Ultimate Tazer Ball | A sport in which players must compete to get a large ball into the goal of the opposing team. Oh, and everybody is armed witha stun gun. |
| Volata | Football for fascists. |
| Welly wanging | Competitors are required to hurl a Wellington boot as far as possible. |
| Wife-carrying | One need not carry one'sown wife to take part, although you may want to run away as fast as possible afterwards. |
| Wooden spoon | ACambridge University tradition adopted by rugby league and rugby union, the Wooden Spoon is awarded to the last-placed team in a competition. |
| Yukigassen | Competitive snowball fighting. |
| Buzkashi | Something likerugby, played on horseback, with a dead goat. |
| Conger cuddling | The "most fun a person could have with a dead fish". |
| Egg tapping | One holds a hard-boiled egg and taps the egg of another participant with one's own egg intending to break the other's, without breaking one's own. |
| Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat | Sydney'sother Olympic mascot. |
| Ferret-legging | A stunt in which a liveferret is put down one's trousers. |
| Fox tossing | A popular sport in 17th and 18th century Europe that involved tossing foxes and other live animals as high as possible into the air. |
| Goose pulling | Hang a live goose from a rope, gallop under it on a horse and pull its head off. What could be simpler? |
| Hamster racing | A uniquely British response tofoot and mouth disease. |
| Kudu dung-spitting | Games for conservationists. |
| Kyz kuu | Involving a man and a woman racing horses. Described as a kissing game, but the woman wins by whipping the man. |
| Legend of the Octopus | If you're going to an ice hockey game in Detroit, be sure to bring your octopus. |
| Octopus wrestling | A sport which once attracted crowds of thousands to watch free divers wrestleNorth Pacific Giant Octopus from the waters of thePuget Sound. |
| Pig Olympics | An international contest between pigs. |
| Rabbit show jumping | Watership up,Watership Down. Watership up, Watership Down. Watership... |
| Robot jockey | Robots designed to ride dromedary camels. |
| Snail racing | Ready, steady, slow! |
| Teddy bear toss | AChristmas tradition in minor leagueice hockey. |
| Turkey bowling | So much for "don't play with your food". |
| Vinkensport | Finch-singing in Belgium. More competitive than you might think. |
| Yak racing | A spectator sport held at traditional festivals in Tibet and Mongolia, among other places. |
| Margaret Abbott | Possibly the only Olympic champion who was never made aware of their achievement. |
| Sebastián Abreu | Prolific Uruguayan striker, most known for switching through clubs like his underwear. |
| Nasra Ali Abukar | Possibly the record holder for the slowest ever competitive 100-meter dash, after she got into theUniversity Games by being related to the chair of the Somali Athletics Committee. |
| Anthony Ammirati | A French pole vaulter who went viral for appearing to knock over the bar with his, um, other pole in the2024 Summer Olympics. |
| Arrhichion | A multi-time Olympic champion ofthe ancient Greek predecessor of MMA, who didn't let being dead stop him from retaining his title. |
| David Ayres | A 42-year-old arena building operator, who briefly played as an emergency goalie in theNational Hockey League. |
| Paula Barila Bolopa | A swimmer fromEquatorial Guinea, who – much like Eric Moussambani below – competed in theSydney Olympics. Her time in the 50m freestyle is apparently the longest in Olympic history. |
| Steve Bartman incident | Similar to, yet also the polar opposite of, the Jeffery Maier incident (see below), a fan is blamed for causing theCubs to losethat year's NLCS and continue theCurse of the Billy Goat. |
| Robert Bobroczkyi | A former college basketball player with a freakishly tall frame (7 ft 7 in)–he was already taller than his mother at age 8–who never got any playing time due to being severely underweight. |
| Philip Boit | How many other Kenyan skiers can you name? |
| Steven Bradbury | Australia's firstWinter Olympics gold medalist, who won speed skating gold after everyone in front of him crashed. |
| Iván Buhajeruk | An Argentine YouTuber who in 2024 signed a contract with theDeportivo Riestra club to play a professional soccer match......and possibly the person with the shortest professional football career in history, as he was substituted after 59 seconds. |
| Rogério Ceni | It's not often you see agoalscoring goalkeeper in soccer, much less one with over 100 recorded goals. |
| Oksana Chusovitina | Most gymnasts plan retirement in their 20s – she's 40 and still going! |
| Cup of coffee | A minor-league player who makes it to the majors just long enough to have a... |
| JamesOn Curry | In perhaps the most extreme example of the above, his NBA career lasted a grand total of 3.9 seconds. JamesOff, perhaps? |
| Curse of Billy Penn | Howa skyscraper in Philadelphia keptthe city's sports teams from winning championships for over 20 years. |
| Curse of the Colonel | ColonelHarland Sanders wreaks revenge from beyond the grave on aJapanese baseball team. |
| Rajai Davis | "Quick, Jason, ride me toCiti Field, I've been called up!" |
| Ali Dia | A guy who tricked his way into English soccer teamSouthampton by claiming he had won 12 caps forSenegal, was related toGeorge Weah and had played forParis Saint-Germain. In 2007,The Times branded him the worst-ever player in top-flight soccer. |
| Daniel Dye | A man who got arrested for quite literally busting a nut. |
| Dock Ellis | Baseball pitcher who, among other things, threw a no-hitter while under influence ofLSD, and once tried tohit every batter in theCincinnati Reds lineup. |
| Eddie the Eagle | A British sportsman famous for coming last in the 1988 Winter Olympics ski-jump competition. |
| Sidd Finch | A fictitious baseball player who learned yoga in Tibet and could pitch a fastball at 168 miles per hour, among other things. Such irregularities in his biography did not stop Mets fans from believing he was real. |
| Eddie Gaedel | A 65-pound (29 kg) baseball player, 3 ft 7 in (1.09 m) tall. Career on‑base percentage: 1.000. |
| Sajjad Ganjzadeh | Getting your head kicked isn't always bad – it won this Iranian an Olympic gold medal. |
| Dolly Gray impostor | Possibly the least known NFL player in history. |
| Rachael Gunn | An Australian breakdancer whose less-than-smooth moves took the Olympics by storm. |
| Ferdinand Habsburg | One of the greatest racing driversAustria has to offer. He's also theheir to the throne of one of Europe's most powerful royal families, but nevermind that. |
| Hannes Þór Halldórsson | An Icelandic filmmaker who also served as thenational team's goalkeeper during their most successful period in history and saved aLionel Messi penalty kick in the World Cup. |
| Hans Heyer | You didn't qualify for a Formula 1 Grand Prix, but you still want to race? Then infiltrate! |
| John Hilton | A man who won the men's singles at theEuropean Table Tennis Championships despite being only the fourth-ranked player at his localYMCA. |
| Hubertus von Hohenlohe | A blue blooded Alpine skier, from the frozen wastes ofMexico City. |
| Carlos Kaiser | A footballer who managed a decade-long career despite lacking pro-level ability and never playing a regulation game. |
| Shizo Kanakuri | An Olympic marathon runner who took a 54-year detour. |
| Oliver Kirk | It's not unusual for a boxer to win two (or more) Olympic gold medals. But it is unusual for them to be won in the same edition. |
| Evel Knievel | A biker known for his numerous stunts, and accidents during said stunts. |
| Kyle Larson | A NASCAR driver who is most known for three things:crashing and taking down the catchfence atDaytona, saying a racial slur during a virtual race during a pandemic, and winning theNASCAR Cup Series championship. Among other things. |
| Bob Lemon | A below-average MLB hitter suddenly gets put on pitching duty after other players said he was good at it when they fought inWorld War II together. Now he's in theHall of Fame. |
| Marx Lenin | Attacking midfielders of the world, unite! |
| Dimitrios Loundras | How many 10-year-olds can boast of having an Olympic medal? |
| Jeffrey Maier incident | A twelve-year-old helped theYankees win the pennant. |
| Mendoza Line | Baseball's standard for underperformance. |
| Eric Moussambani | A swimmer fromEquatorial Guinea in the2000 Summer Olympics whose time in the 100m freestyle was seven seconds behind the winner - of the 200m freestyle. |
| José Offerman | Former baseball player who is most remembered forcharging the mound with a bat in one game and attempting to punch anumpire in another. |
| Phantom ballplayer | A baseball player who spent time on an MLB roster without actually playing, or occasionally one who never existed. |
| Fuahea Semi | As though being aluger from Tonga wasn't unusual enough, he tricked the world's media and theInternational Luge Federation for more than two years into believing that he bore the same name as aGerman lingerie firm. |
| Josip Šimunić | A Croatian footballer bookedthree times before being sent off in the2006 World Cup, and also known for givingUstaše chants to the crowd. |
| Sturla Snær Snorrason | An Icelandic alpine skier who (as of October 2018) has competed in 1 Olympic Games and 2 World Championships, but has yet to finish a single race. |
| Elizabeth Swaney | A Hungarian-American freestyle skier who competed at thehalfpipe event at the2018 Winter Olympics, despite being incapable of performing basic tricks. |
| Manti Te'o | Played in eight NFL seasons, but is perhaps more known for being the victim of one of the most famous catfishing schemes ever. |
| Taro Tsujimoto | An imaginary ice hockey player, drafted becausea manager was reportedly "fed up with the slow drafting process via the telephone". |
| Unknown French boy | An Olympic gold medalist that has never been identified. |
| Kazuo Uzuki | The greatest baseball prospect who never played. |
| Osama Vinladen | A Peruvian footballer; his brother has the same name asSaddam Hussein and he would have had another brother namedGeorge Bush if she had not been born a girl. |
| L. W. Wright | Racing driver and confidence trickster who is often referred to as the "D. B. Cooper of NASCAR". Competed in one careerrace, attempted to qualify for the nextrace, and then disappeared for a full 40 years. |
| Atlanta Black Crackers | ANegro League baseball team named like many others after a local white baseball team, but in this case theAtlanta Crackers were named after a racial nickname. |
| Baltimore Colts relocation to Indianapolis | How an entireNFL team relocated to another city overnight. |
| DPMM FC | A Bruneian football club that has played in theMalaysian Super League andSingapore Premier League, despitetheir home ground being over 1,000 kilometers away from either country. |
| FC Slutsk | How a group of Australians brought worldwide fame to this modestBelarusian football club. |
| Federated States of Micronesia national under-23 football team | Only 3 games played, 0 goals scored,114 conceded. |
| Fernie Swastikas | A Canadian ice hockey team with a well-known logo. |
| Jamaican bobsled team | The real life inspiration for the filmCool Runnings. |
| London Rippers | A Canadian independent league baseball team that modeled its logo and mascot afterJack the Ripper. Local feminists were not amused, butRush Limbaugh came to the team's defense. |
| Mongolia national baseball team | They've only scored 3 runs at theAsian Games. Without everfinishing a game, because of themercy rule. |
| Neom SC | Acity that does not yet exist has already a soccer team! |
| New Zealand national team nomenclature based on the "All Blacks" Badminton New Zealand | When yournational rugby team is successful, what do you do? Follow New Zealand's example and rebrand all of your other sports teams as something similar to them, including a badminton team that tried to rename itself "Black Cocks". |
| Oorang Indians | An all-Native American NFL team put together as a marketing gimmick to sellAiredale Terriers and known more for its halftime dog shows than for its football play. |
| Plainfield Teachers College | Their American football team was unbeaten ...and non-existent. |
| Sark national football team | Also known asThe Bad Lions, the only national team that failed to ever score a goal. |
| Sport in the Principality of Sealand Sealand national football team | Sports in a micronation with a permanent population of 2. |
| Somalia national bandy team | The only African national bandy team is seated in Sweden. |
| Steagles Card-Pitt | Sports teams get relocated all the time (especially in the NFL), but what if they had mergers? Wartime conscription duringWorld War II forced thePittsburgh Steelers to do exactly that. Twice. |
| Tropical nations at the Winter Olympics | More than just Jamaican bobsledders. |
| Vatican City national football team | The squad makes up more than 2 percent of the national population. |
| Vatican Taekwondo | A sporting team with no athletes. |
| Washington Generals | The only basketball team whose job it is to lose, again and again, to the same team. |
| Wichita Monrovians | A Negro League baseball team that played a game against the KKK and won. |
| Windsor Swastikas | Another Canadian ice hockey team with a well-known logo. |
| Wyoming State Penitentiary All Stars | Baseball on death row. The team had a 100% record (because if they lost, their execution date would be brought sooner). |
| 24 Hours of Lemons | An endurance race forterrible cars, with a $500 spending limit, infractions determined by a random wheel, and the grand prize going to the worst car that managed to finish the thing. Holds the world record for most participants in a single race. |
| Australian Football International Cup | The "World Cup" of Australian rules football...in which Australia does not participate. |
| Bobby Jones Open | There's only one name in contention to win this golf tournament. |
| Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake | Don't let it get away! |
| Enhanced Games | The Olympics, just without drug testing requirements. They hope an athlete can beatUsain Bolt's 100m dash record soon. |
| Fan Controlled Football | The world's first professional sports league completely owned by its fans. |
| Henley-on-Todd Regatta | An Australian boat race that is cancelled when there is water in the river. |
| International Rutabaga Curling Championship | Rutabaga curling originated in the frosty December climes ofIthaca, New York. |
| Isles of Scilly Football League | A round-robin, twenty-matchday league between only two teams. |
| Lingerie Football League | "Uniforms consist of helmets, shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, garter belts, bras, and panties." Renamed the Legends Football League in 2013 and Extreme Football League in 2020, with the garters, bras, and panties replaced by slightly more modest performance sportswear. |
| Naha Great Tug-of-War Festival | Requires thousands of participants and a 40-metric-ton, 1.5-metre diameter rope. |
| Pillow Fight League | The first rule of Pillow Fight League is that you do not discuss Pillow Fight League. |
| RoboCup | The goal of this robotics project: to create a robot soccer team that can beat the most recentFIFA World Cup winners. |
| Rocket Racing League | A racing league intending to use rocket-powered aircraft to race a closed-circuit air racetrack. |
| Ultimate Typing Championship | Created in order to promote typing and find the fastest typists in the United States of America. |
| World Black Pudding Throwing Championships | A super championship for a super food. |
| World Naked Bike Ride | Otherhuman-powered transportation modes are acceptable too. |
| 1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech American football game | The most lopsided game in American football history (featuring the godfather of American football himself,John Heisman). |
| 1916 VFL season | Finishing the regular season with the worst record...and as champions? |
| 1967 NFL Championship Game | Often called "The Ice Bowl", a game between theDallas Cowboys and theGreen Bay Packers played in absolutely frigid conditions, at a temperature of −15 °F (−26 °C) (and that's before thewind chill.) |
| 1969 Talladega 500 | "Them dang unions trying to bust my race that I paid millions for because of tire failures! What am I ever going to do now?" - Probably NASCAR CEOBill France Sr. |
| 1978 CONCACAF Champions' Cup | The only time in thehistory ofassociation football in which an official championship ended up being championedex aequo by more than one team; in this case there were three. |
| 1991 Recopa Sudamericana | An international football tournament that was not played because one team won both tournaments that were required to be won in order to play in it. |
| 1992 Troy State vs. DeVry men's basketball game | The highest scoring NCAA basketball game ever. |
| 2004 AFL Cairns Grand Final | A regional Australian rules football grand final that devolved into an all-in brawl just seconds after the national anthem ended. |
| 2005 United States Grand Prix | A race in which 14 out of 20 drivers retired before the start of the race. |
| 2012 Daytona 500 | The 54th running of theDaytona 500 (which was supposed to start on Sunday afternoon) did not finish until early Tuesday morning because of rain and a freak jet dryer accident. |
| 2014 Hiram vs. Mount St. Joseph women's basketball game | How adying teenager's wish became one of the year's biggest stories in American sports. |
| 2021 Belgian Grand Prix | The shortest race inFormula One history, notable for its lack of any actual "racing", but instead three laps of caution in the rain. |
| 2023 Turkish Super Cup | Due to venue issues, one team had to abandon this final two minutes after the start of the match. |
| Announcerless game | The first NFL game to be played in complete silence. |
| AS Adema 149–0 SO l'Emyrne | Takingown goals to the extreme. |
| Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon | The worst-run Olympic event in history. No water in the blazing Missouri heat,a winner who'd been poisoned by his trainers,the "winner" being disqualified for "illegal use of cars",a postman joining at the last minute anda tribesman being chased by aggressive dogs. Among other things. |
| Australia 31–0 American Samoa | The most lopsided "fair" match in association football history since World War I. |
| Barbados 4–2 Grenada | A strange rule change in this soccer match saw one team defending both goals for several minutes, then winning 4–2 despite only scoring three goals. |
| Battle of Bramall Lane | An English professional association football match that was ended at the 83rd minute because the home team lost too many of their players due to injuries and red cards. |
| Battle of Surfaces | Roger Federer andRafael Nadal went head-to-head to determine which court was more victorious:grass orclay? |
| Campbells Creek vs Primrose (1990) | The only time a senior Australian rules football team kicked at least one hundred goals in a game, which took more than three hours to complete due to the sheer amount of time needed to retrieve the ball after all one hundred (plus three) goals. |
| Collision in Korea | A WCW pay per view event in 1995 wasn't so unusual. A professional wrestling match inNorth Korea, however, is a once in a lifetime event. |
| Coventry City 2-2 Bristol City West Germany 1-0 Austria | Match fixing with benefits. |
| Disco Demolition Night | What could go wrong with encouraging people to bring unwanted disco albums to a baseball doubleheader and blowing up the records between games? |
| Game of three halves | A football game restarted from scratch after its scheduled referee arrived. |
| Heidi Game | The last-minute comeback in this American football game wasn't seen by television viewers, as the network cut off the game to show the children's filmHeidi. |
| Isner–Mahut match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships | A record-breaking 11-hour, 5-minute tennis match at theWimbledon 2010. |
| Ka I 21–18 Hang Sai | Basically the same as AS Adema 149–0 SO l'Emyrne (see above) but only this time it was both teams who did it. |
| Mormons vs. Mullets | December 2, 2020: Anunbeaten college football team finds itself with an unexpected open date... andanother unbeaten team is looking for a game. December 3: Game on. December 5: Kickoff. |
| One-armed versus one-legged cricket | According to Charles Dickens: "The one-legged men were pretty well with the bat, but they were rather beaten when it came to fielding." |
| The Play | Before going onto the field for your postgame musical performance, make sure the game is over. |
| Swimming at the 1896 Summer Olympics – Men's sailors 100 metre freestyle | Not just any old sailor - this most niche of events was only open to those serving in the Greek Navy. |
| Ten Cent Beer Night | A Major League Baseball game that tried to attract fans with a beer promotion got progressively worse, until an all-out riot broke out atCleveland Stadium. |
| Underarm bowling incident of 1981 | An infamous end to aninternational cricket match that was arguablynot cricket at all. |
| Wrestling at the 1912 Summer Olympics – Men's Greco-Roman light heavyweight | Possibly the longest final in any Summer Olympic event. Also possibly the only one where no gold medal was awarded (ignoringthoseOlympics where gold medals had yet to be introduced). |
| Blood-vomiting game | "Go" is serious business. |
| Buzzword bingo | A synergistic, forward-thinking game where you can leverage your strategy by avoiding... Bingo! |
| The Campaign for North Africa | The peak of wargaming, this frighteningly complex beast is estimated to take over a real-timedecade to complete (you know, if you want to eat and sleep as well). |
| The Game | Amind game in which players try not to think about The Game – which means that, by reading this, you just lost The Game. |
| Ghettopoly | An unauthorized version ofMonopoly that played onblack and otherstereotypes. TheNAACP was not amused. |
| Kanchō | Popular among East Asian children, this "game" is played by going up to someone and sneakily poking them in the ass. |
| List of games that Buddha would not play | What games wouldBuddha play? None of these, apparently. |
| Mornington Crescent | A deceptively tricky game of navigating theLondon Underground—don't be caught in Nidd! |
| Potato race | On foot, a tame activity for children. On horseback, a chaotic no-holds-barred blood sport where anything goes–except biting. |
| USA Rock Paper Scissors League | Organised finger sport. |
| War on Terror, the Board Game | A boardgame satire of the realWar on Terror that has proved so popular, it has ended up in national museums, in a TV sitcom, as part of a military training simulation and as a teaching aid in higher education institutions. |
| Atomic chess Beirut chess Stratomic | Three different variations on the same idea: combiningchess withexplosions. |
| Bongcloud Attack | An explanation of why 2. Ke2 is the height of modern chess theory. |
| Carlsen–Niemann controversy | Chess doesn't always produce drama, but when it does, it's glorious. A tale of cheating, lawsuits, and vibrating butt plugs. |
| Chess on a really big board | Self-explanatory. |
| Fairy chess pieces | Looking to spice up a game of chess? Throw one of these into the mix. |
| Human chess | Enacted by costumed "pieces" on a scaled-up chessboard. |
| Kasparov versus the World | "The greatest game in the history of chess", perKasparov. His opponent suffered from flame wars, poor chess software and accusations of ballot stuffing. |
| List of chess variants | Of which there are an astounding~2,000. |
| Poole versus HAL 9000 | "I'm sorry, Frank, I think you missed it..." |
| Taikyoku shogi | Japanese 'ultimate chess', with over 400 pieces per side. |
| The Turk | An 18th century chess computer, which turned out to be a hoax. |
| 1593 transported soldier legend | Folk legend of a soldier who fell asleep inManila and woke up inMexico City. |
| Baltic Sea anomaly | Looks like someone left their Millennium Falcon underwater. |
| Bigfoot trap | Believed to be the world's onlyBigfoot trap. |
| Brites de Almeida | A legendary 12-fingered Portuguese baker who baked a group ofCastilian soldiers in her oven as part of thefight for Portuguese independence. |
| Cottingley Fairies | A successful photographic hoax in 1910s England which fooledArthur Conan Doyle. |
| Count of St. Germain | The originalTommy Wiseau, an eighteenth century polymath who made a number of contradictory claims about his origins, including that he was 500 years old. People have also claimed he is an importanttheosophical figure who many have claimed to have met years after his supposed death in 1784. |
| Easter Bilby | How do you have anEaster Bunny in acountry that has hada bad experience with rabbits? With anEaster Bilby of course! |
| Faxlore | Forms of folklore circulated viafax machine. |
| Flying ointment | A hallucinogenic ointment said to be used by witches in theEarly Modern period. |
| Grand Canyon Egyptian cave | An Egyptian cave in theGrand Canyon? A widely 1909 newspaper story about this discovery... happens to be a hoax. |
| Green children of Woolpit | A tale of two purportedly green children who ate nothing but beans and claimed to be from a place where the sun never shone called Saint Martin's Land. |
| Headless men | The most unknown, yet bizarre and intriguing, humanoid monsters in European mythology. Possibly more famous nowadays for having a cameo inScooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. |
| Headless Mule | They've got fire in place of their heads. Because regular mules are for weak people. |
| Heraclitus the Paradoxographer | Before there were 14-year-old Internet atheists, this guy was saying "um, ACKSYUALLY" about Greek myth. |
| Icelandic Elf School | Possibly the only school granting elf-spotting degrees. (Though certificates are also available fromJohn Oliver.) |
| Josiah S. Carberry | An expert oncracked pots, and one of only three fictional people to have won theIg Nobel Prize. |
| Kaspar Hauser | A German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell, and was once thought to be linked to the princelyHouse of Baden. |
| Liver-Eating Johnson | A 19th-century mountain man with a penchant for revenge and the consumption of livers. |
| Machine elf | An entity that people claim they become aware of after having takentryptamine basedpsychedelic drugs such asDMT. |
| Man-eating tree | Hoaxes and unsubstantiated reports inMadagascar and elsewhere. |
| Mapinguari | Acyclops in theAmazon rainforest. |
| Mari Lwyd | It's all fun and games until the horse skull comes knocking on your door. |
| Mariko Aoki phenomenon | Japanese expression referring to a sudden urge to defecate that is felt upon entering bookstores. |
| Monkey-man of New Delhi | Reports in 2001 of a strange monkey-like creature appearing inNew Delhi at night and attacking people. |
| Nightmarchers | One of the coolest creatures in Hawaiian folklore, a group of ghost warriors from the past that walk throughout the island, armed with oceanic weapons. |
| Osculum infame | To greet Satan, you had to kiss his ring... and we're not talking about jewellery here. |
| Panotti | And you thoughtyou had atypically large ears. |
| Pérák, the Spring Man of Prague | A legendary local character who first popped up during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. |
| Père Fouettard | Santa's nasty friend fromAlsace/Lorraine, who whips children. Has many a possible (and strange) origin. |
| Phantom social workers | Mysterious claims of "social workers" seeking to abduct infants and children. |
| Prester John | Asia's only Christian king. |
| Pseudo-mythology | Myths that aren't real. (As opposed to myths that are real?) |
| Rods | Photographic anomalies which some think are undiscovered flying creatures or miniature UFOs. |
| Russian reversal | In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia edits YOU! |
| Spring Heeled Jack | A mysterious character said to have existed inEngland during theVictorian age. |
| Telling the bees | An alternative explanation for the declining bee population. |
| Tió de Nadal | A log that defecates sweets for Catalan children on Christmas eve. |
| Titivillus | The patron demon of scribes, responsible for many errors. |
| Tsukumogami | According to Japanese folklore, if you keep a household item for 100 years, it becomes alive witha spirit, and may grow a face and teeth. |
| Utsuro-bune | An alien encounter, or just a foreign woman who'd been caught adrift? Who knows? |
| Vagina dentata | The tooth, and nothing but the hole tooth. |
| Vampire pumpkins and watermelons | In Balkan legend, an explanation for the blood-red streaks across these fruits: that they'd been left out on a full moon night, and thus turned by vampires. |
| Vril | A book by the "dark and stormy night" guy that spawned rumours about German secret societies, a real master race living underground, andNazi UFOs. |
| Well to Hell | A 9-mile (14 km)borehole drilled by Soviet scientists uncovers the sounds of millions of damned souls. Hot stuff, if it weren't for the fact it was an urban legend. |
| Witch window | A superstitious practice in the State ofVermont to prevent witches from flying through open windows at night. |
| Yonaguni monument | Between Japan and Taiwan lies the last remnant of the sunken continent of Mu (or rather, a natural rock formation that looks interesting enough to pass as it). |
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| Bake-danuki | Uses its testicles as a weapon. |
| Beast of Gévaudan | A mammal(s) that went on a killing spree in southern France in the 1700s, causing significant and expensive Royal intervention. |
| Bird people | The widely recurring motif in legends and fiction of birds who are people, or people who are birds. |
| Bonnacon | A mythical ox which flings burning dung at its enemies from its rear and horn. |
| Cattle mutilation | The alleged killing and subsequentmutilation ofcattle,sheep orhorses by unknown perpetrators. Some say they may bealiens. |
| Chupacabra | Alegendary creature in the folklore of parts of the Americas, generally reported in Latin America, that preys on livestock. |
| Cynocephaly | A kind of human-wolf hybrid where only the head is dog-like. |
| Dog spinning | Do Bulgarians really twizzle their domestic canines to foretell prosperity? The BritishGreen Party thinks so, and they're not happy about it. |
| Drop bear | A fictitiousAustralianmarsupial supposedly related to thekoala. |
| Fearsome critters | North American lumberjack folklore, withAxhandle hounds andjackalopes. |
| Flying pig | The classic impossibility has been officially proved possible by theInternet Engineering Task Force: "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." |
| Gef the talking mongoose | Apoltergeist-like creature which claimed to have been an 80-year-oldIndianmongoose, alleged to have haunted aManx cottage during the 1930s. |
| Humanzee | A hypothetical(?) human/chimpanzeehybrid. |
| Jersey Devil | A mythological creature said to inhabit the New JerseyPine Barrens. |
| Liver bird | A legendary cormorant or eagle that is the symbol of a major English city. |
| Living entombed animal | Tales of toads and other creatures supposedly remaining alive encased in stone. |
| Lluvia de Peces | It's raining fish inHonduras. |
| Mamlambo | One of the most interesting beasts inZulu folklore. |
| Mongolian death worm | A large, bright red worm that kills using acid and electrical discharges – allegedly. |
| Montauk Monster | Actually a decaying raccoon... or is it? |
| Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus | An endangered creature, whose major predator is thesasquatch. Apparently. |
| Phantom kangaroos | They're not just found in Australia. |
| Popobawa | A bat-winged monster fromZanzibar said tosodomize people during election campaigns. |
| Pig-faced women | A lesson never to compare a person's children to pigs when pregnant, lest you be cursed. |
| Rat king | Not the rodent monarch familiar fromThe Nutcracker, but a rare (some say nonexistent) phenomenon in which a group ofrats grow up with their tails tangled in a knot. |
| Reptilian humanoid | A recurring theme in fiction, especially science fiction,pseudoscientific theories andconspiracy theories. |
| Rhinogradentia | A fictitious mammalorder documented by an equally fictitious German naturalist. |
| Sea monk | An aquatic hallelujah. |
| Sidehill gouger | Fictional creatures said to inhabit theRocky Mountains ofBritish Columbia and the southwestern sandhills ofSaskatchewan. |
| Spherical cow | "Consider a spherical cow in a vacuum..." |
| Squonk | A Pennsylvania-based creature that cries constantly because it's so ugly. The most relatable mythical animal. |
| Tarasque | One of the strangest mythical beasts in France. |
| Vegetable Lamb of Tartary | Money might not grow on trees, but maybe sheep do. |
| Widow's man | A strange myth that fishmen and seamen have been telling for centuries now. |
| Absurdistan | The place where silly bureaucracy rules. Has been located in places as diverse asCzechoslovakia andIraq. |
| Bagism | A social ideology created by theBeatleJohn Lennon and his wifeYoko Ono which involves wearing a bag over one's entire body to promote peace and equality. |
| Beard Liberation Front | A British interest group which campaigns in support ofbeards and opposes discrimination against those who wear them. |
| Berners Street hoax | The day that all of London gathered at one house. |
| Birth tourism | Going on vacation to get a different citizenship for the child. |
| Frank Chu | All he wants is royalties for being featured in a real life soap opera broadcast in 12 galaxies – or was it 785,249,000,000,000? |
| Correspondence between the Ottoman sultan and the Cossacks | Amongst other insults and profanity, it supposedly toldSultan Mehmed IV of theOttoman Empire to fuck his mother. |
| Crypt of Civilization | A time capsule not to be opened before8113 A.D. |
| Cutting in line | How rude! |
| Eggplant emoji | These are totally friendly emoji, having no hidden sexual meanings at all, right? |
| Peach emoji | |
| Elaine Davidson | A Brazilian woman that has the record of having the most piercings in the face. |
| Erika Eiffel | Wife of the Eiffel Tower. |
| Elvavrålet | The time of night when Swedish university students throw open their windows and scream their stress away. |
| Escalator etiquette | Which side are you on? |
| Fat men's club | Social clubs for the weightiest members of society. |
| Female husband | Women who specifically marry other women whilst pretending to be men. |
| Jenaro Gajardo Vera | A Chilean lawyer who claimed to own the Moon. |
| Justo Gallego Martínez | A Spanish Catholic priest who, for almost seven decades, single-handedly constructed his own church. |
| Georgia Guidestones | A granite monument commissioned to help guide humanity, which became the subject of conspiracy theories, and the target of a bomber. |
| Guerrilla gardening | "Quick... torch on... plant those carrots!" |
| Go Topless Day | A day to advocatetopfreedom for women. |
| Great Stork Derby | The strangest competition in Canadian history: female residents of Toronto were promised a financial reward to give birth to the most kids in just ten years. |
| Charles Harrelson | One of the most infamous hitmen in US history... and the father of actorWoody Harrelson. |
| He never married | A euphemism often used in mid-20th century obituaries in United Kingdom for gay men. |
| Marie Sophie Hingst | The late German historian and blogger who claimed to be born to Holocaust survivors, despite not being Jewish. |
| Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles | Not aninja turtles fan group, but "an honorable drinking fraternity composed of ladies and gentlemen of the highest morals and good character, who are never vulgar." |
| Japanese adult adoption | The vast majority of adoptees in Japan are childless adult males, adopted by families needing a strong heir or a male successor for their businesses. |
| Elizabeth Klarer | A 20th century Afrikaner woman who claimed that she dated an extraterrestrial being and gave birth to an alien. She later wrote two books about this. |
| Knobbly knees competition | A favourite in holiday camps all over the UK. |
| Hideaki Kobayashi | A man in his sixties dressed as a schoolgirl. Completely innocent, trust us. |
| Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle | Atelevision show produced by theNorth Korean government intended to educate the public on good and bad hairstyles. |
| List of people who have lived in airports | Wish you were here? |
| Long-term nuclear waste warning messages | How do you warn people to stay away from nuclear waste repositories, in a way that will be understandable 10,000 years from now? |
| Jean-Marie Loret | He (and his children) claimed that he was the son of an affair between his mother and a WW1-era, pre-infamy Adolf Hitler. |
| Mónica Macías | The daughter of Equatoguinean presidentFrancisco Macías Nguema who grew up inNorth Korea, withKim Il Sung himself serving as her second father. |
| Man of the Hole | The last survivor of an uncontacted tribe in Brazil, and arguably the world's loneliest person. |
| Mitsuyasu Maeno | Porn actor,yakuza member, Japanese ultranationalist and failed assassin. |
| Mongrel complex | A concept regarding aninferiority complex reportedly felt by some Brazilians. Coined following an especially agonizingWorld Cuploss. |
| Montreal–Philippines cutlery controversy | A 7-year-old boy's eating habits became an international incident. |
| Neturei Karta | An international organization ofOrthodox Jews that opposeIsrael. |
| Niche insurance | Insure yourself against being abducted by aliens, losing your genitalia, or conceiving the second Christ. |
| Emperor Norton | A man who claimed to be "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico" in 1859. |
| Panty tree | Trees covered in various articles of clothing cast off by ski lift passengers. |
| Pole and Hungarian brothers be | A two-nation proverb often cited, usually while drinking, in bothPoland andHungary. |
| Poop emoji | An emoji representing a pile offeces, usually with a cartoony face, which is considered to be good luck inJapan, and used for disapproval and humor inthe West. |
| Posthumous marriage | Saying "'til death do us part" with someone who's already dead. |
| The Queue | A queue, stretching for 10 miles at one point, all the way toSouthwark Park, formed by Britons in September 2022 in order to pay their respects to theirlate sovereign. |
| Sentinelese | AnautonomousStone Age human tribe which completely avoids contact with the outside world. |
| Society for Indecency to Naked Animals | We willcertainly not tolerate unclothed animals! Concocted as a joke, but managed to get an actual following.Moral panics has gone too far... |
| South Korean National Liberation Front Preparation Committee | A pro-North Korean organization inSouth Korea. |
| Travelling gnome | Taking agarden gnome on an adventure... occasionally without telling the owner of the garden it was on. |
| Vesna Vulović | A Serbian flight attendant who became famous for surviving the highest fall without the use of parachutes. |
| War of the stop signs | Free movementmeans free movement. |
| Ziona | An Indian man who holds the record for fathering the largest living family in the world. In total, he had 39 spouses and 94 children. Talk about the weekly home bills.... |
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| 1803 Gatton by-election | A rare contestedby-election in one of the UK's most notoriousrotten boroughs of the early 19th century showing how attempting to contest them was futile. There were three candidates, two of which received zero votes after the one opposing ballot was disqualified by the borough's owner's brother-in-law. |
| 1876 United States presidential election | Forget2000; this was the closest election in American history. With election fraud of all kind, sky-high tensions, and worries the nation would fall back into civil war over the winner, the champion of this election was decided by15 people just56 hours before inauguration day. |
| 1927 Liberian general election | The most fraudulent election in recorded history, with aturnout of 1,680%. |
| 1952 Texas gubernatorial election | A gubernatorial election in which Democratic nomineeAllan Shivers won in a landslide against Republican nominee... Allan Shivers. |
| 1986 Illinois gubernatorial election | Followers of a bizarre political figure hijack an election, and force one of the main candidates into running under a different party. |
| 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election | Who would you rather vote for: asuspected felon or theformer Grand Wizard of the KKK? Louisiana fortunately chose correctly. |
| 2018 Makassar mayoral election | In whichMunafri Arifuddin ran unopposed for mayor ofMakassar, Indonesia, won more than 250,000 votes,and lost. |
| 2024 Qatari constitutional referendum | When an entire nation voted tonever vote again. |
| Above Znoneofthe | A Canadian politician who changed his name so that people would misread it as "none of the above" on the ballot (with the Z added to appear at the end of the list) and pick his name by mistake. However, he was printed on the ballots not as "Znoneofthe Above" but as "Above Znoneofthe", and his (almost) masterminded plan failed. |
| Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act | An apparently innocuous piece of congressional legislation that became the subject of outrageous but widely believed conspiracy theories in 1956. |
| Almost Naked party | A Russian political scandal where several celebrities attended a party wearing very little, with one person only wearing a sock on his penis. |
| André Dallaire | How often do would-be assassins break into aPrime Minister's residence without resistance? |
| Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany | A satirical party formed in the 1980s. Some of its main objectives includebalkanizing Germany, legalizing all drugs and creating so-called "fuckpooling centers". |
| Antanas Mockus | The surprisingly effective mayor ofBogotá, Colombia, known for civically-targeted publicity pranks. |
| Anti-Japaneseism | Advocates for self-inflicted genocide. |
| Anti-PowerPoint Party | Fighting the overuse ofMicrosoft PowerPoint in offices since 2011. |
| Bald–hairy | Russian leadership has alternated between bald and hairy leaders since 1825. |
| Banned in Boston | Boston now has a reputation as a liberal city, but it wasn't always so... |
| Barack Obama "Joker" poster | You wanna know how I gotthese scars? |
| Alejandro Cao de Benós | A Spanish man who is the only non-Korean person to officially work for the North Korean government. Benós is also featured in some documentaries about North Korea, such asThe Propaganda Game andThe Mole: Undercover in North Korea. |
| Biotic Baking Brigade | Pie-throwing anarchists. |
| Boris Skossyreff | Belarusian adventurer, who tried to seize the monarchy ofAndorra and called himself Boris I of Andorra. |
| British Israelism | A long discredited form ofBritish nationalism, by way of the idea that theTen Lost Tribes of Israel made their way to Britain. |
| Brown Dog affair | Political scandal that resulted in police protection for the statue of a dog. |
| Bung Moktar Radin | A Malaysian politician known for his notoriously unparliamentary behavior, including shouting "fuck you" on theDewan Rakyat floor and tweeting "long live Hitler" after a World Cup match. God knows how he's managed to retain his position for the last 20 years. |
| Bunga bunga | Nobody knew what it meant, untilone Italian politician made it mean "kinky sex". |
| Bushism | Any of a number of peculiar words, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms, semantic or linguistic errors that have occurred in the public speaking of former United States PresidentGeorge W. Bush. |
| Candy Desk | A desk on the floor of the U.S. Senate has been kept filled with candy since 1968. |
| Charles the Bald | A 9th century emperor of theCarolingian Empire who is depicted in artwork as having a full head of hair. |
| Chernomyrdinka | Russia can do Bushisms too. |
| Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office | An official government position in the United Kingdom. |
| Count Binface | An intergalatic warlord and British political candidate (formerlyLord Buckethead). |
| Celso Daniel | A city mayor in Brazil who was, allegedly, assassinated in 2002 by criminals, but many people say that he was murdered for political reasons. Within five years, seven witnesses were found dead. To this day, thecase remains unsolved. |
| Frank Collin | A JewishNeo-Nazi. |
| Congressional office lottery | The process that determines when representatives in theHouse can pick their rooms, host to such rituals as playingFrank Sinatra songs andJedi mind tricks. |
| Crusade of Romanianism | 1930s Romania saw possibly the world's only political movement which attempted to synthesizefascism withlibertarian socialism. |
| Darth Vader in Ukrainian politics | The Sith Lord has participated in elections in Ukraine. Multiple times actually.So much that a Lenin statue was modified to replicate his likeness. |
| David Rice Atchison | Possibly President for a day, only finding out after his "term" had ended. |
| Deez Nuts | A satirical candidate who ran for president during the2016 U.S. presidential election and polled 10% at his best. In the polls, he had defeated other notable candidates such asHarambe,Beast Mode,Darrell Castle (this one is real), and nearlyJill Stein. |
| Democracy sausage | Part of Australia's tradition of holding a fundraisingsausage sizzle at polling places on election day. Not connected to the observation about similarities betweenhow laws and sausages are made. |
| "Dewey Defeats Truman" | WhenThomas E. Dewey was falsely thought to have defeatedHarry S. Truman in the1948 election. |
| Diella | The world's first AI-generated cabinet minister. |
| Division of Batman | A former electoral district inMelbourne, Australia. And no, it wasn't named after thesuperhero. |
| Dizzy Gillespie 1964 presidential campaign | Had it succeeded, it would have created a dream cabinet includingDuke Ellington,Miles Davis,Louis Armstrong,Thelonious Monk,Charles Mingus, andRay Charles; the White House would be renamed to the Blues House. |
| Donald Duck Party | A non-existent political party, at occasions among the top ten parties inSwedish parliamentary elections. |
| Dunwich | Anotherrotten borough which had almost entirely fallen into the sea over two centuries before it was abolished.Not to be confused with the other Dunwich... |
| Ed Miliband bacon sandwich photograph | The biggest enemy of British politician - and then Leader of the Opposition -Ed Miliband? A simple bacon sandwich. |
| Eddie Eagle | Not theBritish ski-jumping pioneer, but theNRA's firearm safety mascot. For kids! |
| Elections in North Korea | How democracy works in one ofthe most authoritarian countries in the world. |
| Wolfgang Engels | A 19-year old civilian employee of theNational People's Army who smashed through theBerlin Wall with a stolen APC. |
| Euromyth | Paranoid and imaginative speculations about the bureaucratic excesses of theEuropean Union. |
| Executive Order 14168 | The executive order that (accidentally) made everyone in the US female. |
| Four Pests campaign | Mao Zedong's campaign to eliminate allsparrows in China. Helped (in some small way, at least) cause theGreat Chinese Famine. |
| Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference | The bizarre scene whenTrump's presidential campaign hosted a presser not at theFour Seasons Hotel Philadelphia... but at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, Philadelphia. |
| Fuddle duddle | A Canadian political incident involving mostunparliamentary language. |
| fufufafa | A vice president was mocking uphis president throughan internet forum ? |
| Gaysper | When Spain's major far-right party accidentally created an LGBT+ icon. |
| George H. W. Bush broccoli comments | The president's strategy for winning the baby vote. |
| George H. W. Bush vomiting incident | Speaks for itself. |
| George W. Bush shoe-throwing incident | An incident where Iraqi journalistMuntadhar al-Zaidi threw a pair of shoes at George W. Bush on December 14th, 2008 during a press conference. |
| German Apples Front | A campaign to purify the German... fruit crop. |
| Glee Club | Predating theAmerican television series by some decades,one British political party hosts this evening of entertainment in which participants are encouraged to sing rude songs making fun of politicians past and present, both in the party and in more general politics. |
| Greek Ecologists | A Green party which uses nudity in its political campaigns. |
| Günter Schabowski | A Freudian slip of this East German official started the demolition of theBerlin Wall. |
| H'Angus | A monkey football mascot who was elected mayor ofHartlepool, England, with a platform of "free bananas for all schoolchildren". |
| Harcourt interpolation | The editor of this page then said he felt inclined for a bit of fucking. |
| Harold Holt | He goes swimming, and then missing. In a strange turn of events,this also led to a swimming pool being named in his honor. |
| Helengrad | A nonexistent communist dystopia that supposedly gripped Wellington, New Zealandbetween 1999 and 2008. |
| Huh Kyung-young | Aperennial South Korean political candidate who owns a palace filled with portraits of himself, claims to be able to levitate and teleport, and that he has an IQ of 430. Got 0.8% of the vote for President in 2022. |
| Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party | The best satirical party in Hungary. |
| Ich bin ein Berliner | President Kennedy did not call himself a jelly donut in front of a German audience. |
| Ilona Staller | A Hungarian porn star elected to theItalian Parliament. |
| Incidents of objects being thrown at politicians | In various countries, objects have been thrown at politicians for reasons varying from comedic to harmful with objects from pies to grenades. |
| Jakob Maria Mierscheid | A fictitious politician in the GermanBundestag since 1979, originally introduced in the 1920s byWeimarSocial Democrats to avoid paying restaurant bills. Discovered theMierscheid Law. |
| Jón Gnarr | An Icelandic comedian who started the satiricalBest Party, and became the mayor ofReykjavík. |
| John C. Turmel | With a record of no wins and over 100 losses in campaigns since 1979, he's probably the world's least-successful would-be politician. |
| Dennis Hof | An Americanpimp who owned severallegal brothels inNevada and won the Nevada 36th district election in 2018... While he was dead. |
| Justin Humphrey | An American politician who made a bill that would make it illegal to be afurry inOklahoma schools and promoted an officialBigfoot hunting season, among others. |
| Kasongo Ilunga | A man who spent several months of 2007 as the Minister for Foreign Trade of theDemocratic Republic of the Congo – even though he wasn't a real person. |
| Kim Ju Ae | What do you do when aformer NBA player is your best source for the name of the child of the head of a state? |
| Ku Klux Klan titles and vocabulary | If you ever find yourself an alien in the Klavern and someone asks "AYAK?", remember to answer "AKIA". It's all "CABARK". |
| Lyndon LaRouche | What does theGlass-Steagall Act,concert pitch, and a hypotheticalEurasian Land Bridge have in common? According to him,Elizabeth II's attempts to suppress"the truth" about them. |
| Legislative violence | Where politicians actively fight for what they believe in. |
| List of Kim Jong Il's titles | Because just being the "Great Leader" wasn't enough. |
| List of politically motivated renamings | Freedom fries andliberty cabbage! |
| List of short-tenure Donald Trump political appointments | "You're fired!" (almost as quickly as you were hired) |
| Liz Truss lettuce | The vegetable that outlasted a British prime minister. |
| Longest Ballot Committee | Making it harder to run a first-past-the-post election by making the ballot dozens of candidates long. |
| Byron (Low Tax) Looper | Not only did he give himself a parenthetical middle name, he tried to win an election by simply murdering his opponent – and you won't believe this – it didn't work. |
| Lord Bloody Wog Rolo | Australian political personality and founder of the British Ultra Loyalist League Serving Historical Interests Today (B.U.L.L.…). |
| Luke Lea | Former American Senator who tried to kidnapthe exiled former Kaiser of Germany in 1919. The plan failed when the Kaiser refused to allow him to visit. He ended up stealing a bronze ashtray instead. |
| Marxist–Leninist Party of the Netherlands | A fakeMaoist political party set up bythe BVD in order to spy on the Chinese government. FooledZhou Enlai, and may have helped facilitateNixon's tour of China. |
| Mitsuo Matayoshi | Perennial candidate. Self-proclaimed God. Repeatedly told opponents to kill themselves. |
| McGillicuddy Serious Party | A satirical political party inNew Zealand. |
| Mel Carnahan | In 2000, he was elected to theUnited States Senate, despite dying in a plane crash 3 weeks before election day. |
| Merkel-Raute | More than one German leader has been known for a distinctive hand gesture. |
| Mini-dokuritsukoku | That time when hundreds of local communities and businesses in Japan declared "independence". |
| Moha | "Toad worship": the online cult of former Chinese President,Jiang Zemin. |
| Nagriamel | A libertarian, welfarist, traditionalist,cargo cultist Ni-Vanuatu political movement that was once led by a man named "Moses" with 23 wives andbriefly tried to secede. Still represented in the Parliament of Vanuatu, making it perhaps the world's strangest non-satirical party with actual influence. |
| Name changes due to the Islamic State | Companies thought it would be a great idea to name their project "Isis"until... |
| National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation | A yearly event when the US president pardons two turkeys instead of letting them get eaten for Thanksgiving. |
| New shoes on budget day | One of Canada's less grand political traditions. |
| Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda | Mexicaneccentric who repeatedly ran for president, lost, and claimed he'd won.Sound familiar? |
| NHK Party | The Japanese anti-TV licensing fees party with nine names since 2020,two feudingleaders, and a habit of picking YouTubers as candidates, that is somehow still represented in theNational Diet. |
| Niuas Nobles' constituency | Anelectoral constituency consisting of just three voters, who elect one of their number to one of the twenty-six seats in theLegislative Assembly of Tonga. |
| Nobody for President | Vote for Nobody!Nobody will listen to their campaign promises! |
| Non-human electoral candidate | Why be ruled by some monkey,RINO or pig when you can get a real chimp, rhino or pig into office? |
| Norway Debate | A series ofadjournment debates over three days, one of which ended with theHouse of Commons nearly voting against the question 'that this House do now adjourn'. Highlights include former Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George comparing future Prime MinisterWinston Churchill to anair raid shelter. |
| 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens | A recurring article fromThe Onion published dozens of times with minimal changes as a satire of America's gun control. |
| Nuisance candidate | In the Philippines, political candidates can be disqualified for bringing the election into disrepute or mockery, having a name which confuses voters or not actually intending to run for office. |
| Official Monster Raving Loony Party Screaming Lord Sutch Catmando | Among other policies, this British political party advocates the banning ofsemicolons as "no-one knows how to use them". Its original leader still holds a British record by standing in 40 elections and losing all of them. Also, it was run for a while by a cat. |
| Old Sarum | A notorious UK rotten borough which elected 2MPs, despite having an electorate of 11, none of whom actually lived there. |
| Gabriele Paolini | His sole aim in life: to get condoms on TV. |
| Panda diplomacy | Turns out that the best Chinese diplomats are pandas. |
| Parliamentary snuff box | The only place where you can legally get free tobacco in the UK is the House of Commons. |
| Pascual Racuyal | AFilipino presidential aspirant who promised to build plastic roads and govern the Philippines "via satellite". |
| Patrol 36 | The most famous group ofNeo-Nazi Israelis. |
| Pedro Lascuráin | President of Mexico for 45 minutes. |
| People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada) | The only Marxist-Leninist constitutional monarchy in history withElizabeth II as monarch. |
| Piggate | Supposedly, former British prime ministerDavid Cameron put his genitalia into a pig's mouth as part of an... initiating ceremony. |
| Pink Pistols | They're here, they're queer – and they're armed to the teeth. |
| Polish Beer-Lovers' Party | One of the major political powers inPoland in the early 1990s. |
| Political Google bombs in the 2004 U.S. presidential election | I was searching for waffles, notJohn Kerry. |
| ¿Por qué no te callas? | It's not oftena head of state tellsanother head of state to shut up at an official summit. |
| Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act | Anact of Congress specifically made to ban aspecific popular Chinese social media app, that only succeeded in banning said specific Chinese social media app for 12 hours. In those 12 hours, Americans were flocking toanother Chinese social media app. |
| Puedo prometer y prometo | Spain's first political joke after the end of theFranco era. |
| Putin khuylo! | Or "Putin is a dickhead", in Ukrainian. |
| Ratfucking | What theWatergate conspirators did. (Notbestiality, if that's what you're thinking.) |
| Redskins Rule | WhenWashington's NFL team won, the party of the current president retained the presidency; when they lost, the opposition party won. |
| Resignation from the House of Commons of the United Kingdom | Illegal since 1624. |
| Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1978) | A BritishTrotskyist |
| Rhinoceros Party | A formerpolitical party inCanada, which often promised outlandishly impossible schemes designed to amuse and entertain the voting public. |
| Richard Nixon mask | One of the United States' most popular masks. |
| Russian political jokes | In Soviet Russia, the article reads you. |
| George Santos | Acongressional district near New York City being won by a Republican is strange. What's even stranger is the man who won it: made several false claims about his family and life, lived as adrag queen in Brazil, and became the first congressman expelled that hadn't previously been a felon or had ties to theConfederacy! |
| "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" | During the 1988 United States vice presidential debate,Michael Dukakis's running mate SenatorLloyd Bentsen roastedGeorge H. W. Bush's running mateDan Quayle, who constantly compared himself toJack Kennedy. It seemed like a perfect way to paint Quayle as a buffoon who thought highly of himself, right?Guess who won instead... |
| Shanghai Fugu Agreement | A completely fictitious international treaty accepted by the German state ofHesse in 1985. |
| Shawinigan Handshake | A tensePrime Minister puts a chokehold on a protestor. |
| Shi Pei Pu | A male Chinese opera singer-turned-spy who seduced French diplomatBernard Boursicot for 20 years by pretending to be a woman, even "having" a child with him. |
| Sister Boom Boom | A drag queen who dressed as a nun and ran for the Board of Supervisors ofSan Francisco. |
| Socialist fraternal kiss | When two socialist leaders are very close... |
| Socialist Patients' Collective | An organization that charged that diseases were caused by capitalism. |
| Strom Thurmond filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 | You've got toreally care about white supremacy to talk for 24 hours straight. (Happily, it didn't stop the Civil Rights Act from passing.) |
| Taiwan Communist Party | The founder of the party claimed he had no knowledge of communist theory and only picked the name to garner interest. |
| The Wizard of New Zealand | The Prime Minister of New Zealand gave a friend the title of "Wizard of New Zealand." |
| "There's No One as Irish as Barack O'Bama" | A 2008 song celebrating the Irish heritage of then-candidate forPresident of the United StatesBarack Obama. |
| Tía Pikachu | A Chilean preschool teacher who wore an inflatablePikachu costume in the country's 2019 protests, who was later elected to a board to rewrite the country's constitution. |
| Tsang Tsou-choi | From the 1970s to his death, he claimed to be the "Kowloon emperor". |
| Wilson Tucker | The power ofgroup voting tickets brought a man living in America to Australian regional office despite only having gained 98 votes. |
| Unabomber for President | 1996 saw a presidential campaign for aninfamous domestic terrorist serving eight life sentences in asupermax prison. |
| Union of the Centrist Center | Actually centre-right. |
| Vermin Supreme | A presidential candidate with a boot on his head, who carries around a large toothbrush and pledges that, if elected, he will give every U.S. citizen a pony. |
| Waitangi dildo incident | Once upon a time in New Zealand, Minister for Economic DevelopmentSteven Joyce was attacked with a dildo. |
| White House horseshoe pit | WhereGeorge H. W. Bush won an epic duel ofhorseshoes 21-0 in five minutes. |
| Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan | A spoof scientific study byJ.G. Ballard which compares the face ofRonald Reagan to an erect penis. Was circulated at the1980 RNC as a prank. |
| You have two cows | Apolitical satire comparing differentpolitical ideologies with cows, for some reason. |
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| 1933 double eagle | An extremely rare U.S. coin that is illegal to privately own. |
| 2018 Samsung fat-finger error | When newSamsung Securities shareholders became 112 trillion won (1,017,719,218.54 USD) richer. |
| BackpackersXpress | It's hard to see what went wrong with this proposal to fly Boeing 747s full of singing, dancing and drinking backpackers between Australia and the UK. |
| Bank of England £100,000,000 note | If you thought the largest UK banknote was£50, then you're VERY wrong. |
| Big Ass Fans | Hey, it's not a lie. |
| Big Mac Index | Ronald McDonaldonomics. |
| Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions | Or "BUGA-UP" for short. An Australian group of subversive artists who live up to their self-description by defacingtobacco andalcohol billboard advertisements to promote healthy living. |
| Bitcoin buried in Newport landfill | How far would you go to take back your money? |
| Boss key | A special button on an application used to quickly mask an employee's counterproductivity. |
| CeX | It sells. |
| Christmas Price Index | How much it would cost to buy (or hire) all the items inthe Twelve Days of Christmas each year. |
| Dead cat bounce | In finance, a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock, because "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height." |
| Dead mall | That formerly active and popular mall that no one goes to anymore. |
| Elongated coin | What better souvenir than a mangled and defaced penny. |
| EURion constellations | Not-so-secret recognition patterns you can find on banknotes. |
| Fedspeak | Federal Reserve Board statements were made deliberately cryptic so no one understood them. |
| Financial Modeling World Cup | Anesport competition offinancial modelling, usingMicrosoft Excel. |
| Fixed price of Coca-Cola from 1886 to 1959 | For over 70 years, the price of a bottle of Coke in the U.S. was five cents. |
| Fukuppy | A branding exercise by a Japanese refrigeration company, which turned into a, well, ... |
| GameStop short squeeze | Internet traders meme their way into a battle for Wall Street. To the moon! |
| Gruen transfer | Shopping malls are designed to confuse the customer, making them more susceptible to impulse buying. |
| Prix Guzman | AFrench Academy of Sciences prize to be given to the first person to communicate with a celestial body, other than Mars (widely believed to be inhabited at the time), and receiving a response. It caught the attention ofTesla among others, but was not awarded until1969. |
| Hallmark holiday | A holiday that seemingly exists primarily for commercial purposes. |
| Hemline index | Theother reason why CEOs like women with short skirts. |
| Hungarian pengő | The worst inflation in history caused this currency to be replaced withanother that was 400octillion times its value. |
| Inflatable rat | Common tool of U.S. labor unions. |
| IKEA pencil | Free, popular, and even used in surgery. |
| Kongō Gumi | The world's oldest company that is still in operation today. |
| Maid café | So cuteeee. |
| Men's underwear index | An economic indicator popularised by Alan Greenspan. |
| Meme coin | Actual tradedcryptocurrencies based on internet memes. |
| Merchant Marine of Switzerland | A landlocked country with a significant commercial fleet. |
| Money burning | For behaviour modification, political notoriety and a warm fireplace. (See alsoK Foundation Burn a Million Quidabove.) |
| Olim L'Berlin | A Facebook page that urged Israelis to move to Germany by comparing prices of a popularMilky pudding. |
| Oil futures drunk-trading incident | A rather costly drunken mistake. |
| Operation Bernhard | A Nazi plan to cause hyperinflation in the UK by way of forged banknote dropping. |
| Purple squirrel | Mythical creature, a job candidate with precisely the right education, experience, and qualifications that perfectly fits a job's requirements. |
| Rai stones | Stone money, some of which is 3 meters (10 ft) in diameter, and weighs 4 metric tons (8,800 lb). |
| Gerald Ratner | Business 101: If you own an incredibly popular jewellery company, maybe don't publicly announce that your products are all cheap garbage. |
| Slum tourism | And if you look to your left you will see animpoverished minority neighborhood. |
| Swastika Laundry | A laundry service whose electric vans cheerfully displayed the notorious symbol aroundDublin until the 1960s. |
| Tanganyika groundnut scheme | A scheme, stymied by a lack of water, to grow peanuts where none had been grown before. |
| Therbligs | In motion studies, the elemental motions used by a person when performing a process in the workplace. Named by and afterFrank Bunker Gilbreth andLillian Moller Gilbreth (yes, the parents inCheaper by the Dozen). |
| Ting Hai effect | A sudden drop in the stock market that follows whenever Hong Kong actorAdam Cheng stars in a new TV show. |
| Tingo Group Dozy Mmobuosi | A seemingly magical Nigerian agri-fintech company that was once valued for more than $1 billion. Actually discovered to be a personal vehicle for its founder, who's now charged with securities fraud. |
| Toyokawa Shinkin Bank incident | How idle chatter between three high school girls led to a 2-billion-yenbank run. |
| Trillion-dollar coin | A concept that was proposed as a way to bypass US debt-ceiling crisis through the minting of high-value platinum coins. |
| Tulip mania | The first recorded assetbubble was for Dutch tulips, which at the peak of the mania sold for 10 times a skilled artisan's income. Disputed to have ever occurred by some. |
| "Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!" | An ad campaign that figured the best way to sell cigarettes is to show all the consumers with black eyes. |
| Veblen good | Goods whose demand increases as price increases, violating thelaw of demand. |
| Why didn't you invest in Eastern Poland? | Because if you don't, your in-laws will hate you, your children won't respect you, even your therapist will judge you, according to this mocked PR campaign. |
| Zero-rupee note | A method of reducing bribery inIndia. |
| Zimbabwean one hundred trillion dollar note | All thanks toZimbabwe's hyperinflation, this is by far one of the largest currency denominations. |
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| 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack | The first and largest bioterror attack in United States history involved the poisoning of salad bars withSalmonella in an attempt to sway an election in favor ofthe followers of anIndian mystic. |
| 1995 San Diego tank rampage | They say that being in a tank gives you the high ground. It certainly reigns true here. |
| 2007 Boston Mooninite panic | Aguerilla marketing campaign for an animated TV series that quickly became ahomeland security issue. |
| Sada Abe | Sensational journalism—from the Land of the Rising Sun. |
| Acoustic Kitty | A failedCIA experiment at using a cat for covert surveillance. |
| Animal trial | Historically, the law in some areas of Europe subjected animals to criminal liability for their conduct. |
| Attempted theft of George Washington's skull | Alas, poor George! |
| Baby Jesus theft | When a child is gone... |
| Batman rapist | Batman's back at it again, but this time it's actually a sex offender who attacked women in the city ofBath. |
| Bowling Green massacre | A nonexistent massacre mentioned by theTrump administration, subject to parody. |
| Burke and Hare murders | What is the best way to accelerate scientific progress? Killing people, of course. |
| Cadaver Synod | In which the stinking corpse ofPope Formosus was exhumed, put on trial, and declared guilty (since he had no way to object, of course...). |
| Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108 | Non-suicide aircraft bombings for insurance moneyhave been done afterwards, but certainly not for the purposes of elopement. |
| Chamoy Thipyaso | At 141,078 years, she holds the record for the longest prison sentence without lifetime imprisonment – and didn't even serve 1% of it. |
| Chewbacca defense | "Now, why would Wikipedia have an article about the Chewbacca defense? That doesnot make sense!" |
| Michael Cicconetti | A judge renowned for his strange alternative punishments. |
| Cicada 3301 | Criminals or puzzle enthusiasts? |
| Commission Regulation (EC) No. 2257/94 | The infamous "bendy banana law", this seemingly-dry piece ofEU quality standards legislation convinced the UK media and many ordinary people that Brussels had banned bananas from being curved. One of the most infamousEuromyths. |
| Confraternities in Nigeria | In Nigeria, universitystudent societies have been frequently linked to kidnapping, sexual assault and mass murder. |
| Crime in Antarctica | It's not the Wild West—er, South. |
| Crime in Vatican City | Because of its low population and large number of tourists, the statistics suggest the average citizen commits two crimes per year. |
| Dead Man's Statute | Enacted to prevent a witness from testifying about communications with a dead person. |
| Easter Act 1928 | The government of the United Kingdom legally mandated a change of date for Easter Sunday to a period of seven days - and then never actually enforced it. |
| Emo killings in Iraq | Music fans killed for their allegedSatan worship andhomosexuality. |
| Expert wizard amendment | New Mexico narrowly avoided requiring all psychiatrists testifying in court to put on a robe and wizard hat. |
| Free Bench | An unusual English legal custom permitting a widow to inherit her deceased husband's land. In one version, she would have to ride into court backwards on a black ram while reciting anonsense verse. |
| Glasgow ice cream wars | In the 1980s, violent conflicts between ice-cream vendors (who also sold drugs and stolen goods) left six people dead. |
| Troy Leon Gregg | Escaped from death row, got killed in a bar fight that same night. |
| Disappearance of Johnny Gosch | In 1982, a 12 year-old went missing. As of 2023, the case is still unsolved, and Gosch's whereabouts remain a mystery. However, Gosch's mother claims that he visited her in 1997, and in 2006 she found a photo sent by an anonymous person to her front door. |
| Guano Islands Act | This strange piece of legislation enables citizens of the U.S. to take possession of islands containingguano deposits. |
| Gresham cat hostage taking incident | In 1994, a cat was taken hostage by its owner in a store. The owner would later get shot and killed by police. |
| Robert Hanssen | Tasked by the FBI to help rat out Soviet spies. The problem?He was one of them. |
| Helen Duncan | The last woman convicted under the UK's Witchcraft Act. Her favourite trick: "ectoplasm" made out of fabric and egg. |
| Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal | A craft store chain purchases stolen Iraqi artifacts. |
| Hungry judge effect | Pray your hearing doesn't come right before lunch. |
| "I know it when I see it" | "Notthat, but something sort of like that?" |
| John Smeaton | Sometimes, the best way to avoid a terrorist attack is to simply kick the terrorist in the balls. |
| John "Half-hanged" Smith | They tried to hang him, but he survived. Later attempts to try him fizzled out until they just decided to deport him to America. |
| Lake Erie Walleye Trail cheating scandal | "We gotweights inFISH!!!" |
| Learned Hand | Thanks to his name, this American judge could've part-timed as a superhero—"The Learned Hand of the Law" has a nice ring to it. Given his impact on tax law, his birth name of Billings Learned Hand is even more apropos. |
| Jay Leiderman | The lawyer that representedAnonymous. |
| Lesbian rule | Not the replacement for thePatriarchy, but an archaic term meaning legal flexibility (and originally a building tool fromLesbos). |
| Ley de fugas | Prisoners were allowed to escape, as an excuse to kill them for trying to escape. |
| Viola Liuzzo | One of the FBI's darkest criminal cases. |
| Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano | A Guatemalan attorney who arranged his own death and blamed it on the President, seeking justice for his murdered girlfriend. |
| Massachusetts School Laws | How 17th-century Massachusetts sought to rid itself of the Prince of Darkness. |
| Matrix defense | A claim that the defendant committed a crime under the belief of being inside asimulated reality. The defense has been successful more than once. |
| Gary McKinnon | How aUFO enthusiast withAsperger syndrome was able to hack into the US government's computers. |
| A moron in a hurry | Used inpassing-off law, this is the sort of fictional person who would look at a knockoff product and think it's the real thing for long enough to buy it. |
| Mug shot of Donald Trump | How a photo of the45th president of the US getting arrested (and released shortly after) became a source of comedy on the internet. |
| My Way killings | There's one song you shouldn't sing in a Filipino karaoke bar. |
| Ninja of Heisei | An elderly Japanese man who successfully committed over 250 burglaries while disguised in a ninja outfit. |
| Not proven | A controversialScots law verdict for those neither guilty nor innocent. |
| Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi | In 1983, a teenage girl went missing in the Vatican and the search for her whereabouts became a major controversy. In 2023, the religious state opened for the first time an official investigation on the matter. |
| Onion Futures Act | Why you can't buy any onionfutures, but you can for corn, oats, rice, aluminum, crude oil, wood, etc. |
| Operation Flagship | Do not trust theSan Diego Chicken. |
| Perry Mason moment | "Mr. Menendez, did you knowBig 5 stopped selling pistols in 1986?" |
| Phantom of Heilbronn | A DNA-traced serial killer, also known as the "Woman without a face", who turned out to be nonexistent. |
| Phantom social workers | They make children disappear. |
| Prenda Law | A law firm that blackmailed people for allegedly downloading pornography; the firm was described by one court as a "porno-trolling collective". |
| Prohibition of dying | There are really some places where death is illegal. (Although it is unknown what happens to anyone who breaks this law.) |
| Regulation of flamethrowers in the United States | No permit needed in 48 states. |
| Rough sex murder defense | It is what it is. |
| Mitchell Rupe | The man who was too fat to hang. |
| Salmon Act 1986 | A UK law designed to curb illegal fishing, which creates the humorously-named crime of "handling salmon in suspicious circumstances". |
| Sand theft | What do you mean I can't take the sand home? |
| Shaggy defense | Caught committing a crime, but don't know what to do?Say it wasn't you. |
| Small penis rule | A technique used by authors to avoid libel lawsuits. |
| Steve Comisar | America's #1solar-powered dryer salesman. |
| Suspensory Act 1914 | An act whose sole purpose was to postpone the coming into force of two other acts. |
| Tennessee login law | Laws against password sharing are older than you think, but have always been this unpopular. |
| The Beatles (terrorist cell) | The Fab Four of Islamist jihad. |
| Theft by finding | When "finders keepers" doesn't apply. |
| Keron Thomas | In 1993, aged sixteen, he posed as amotorman on theNew York City Subway and managed to operate a scheduled passenger train for over three hours. |
| Andre Thomas | Serial killer who tore out his eyes and consumed them in order to prevent the government from reading his mind. |
| Twinkie defense | When you don't want to go to jail. |
| Ugly law | A type of U.S. city ordinance banning anyone "diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object" from being in public. |
| United Airlines Flight 976 | The worst case ofair rage ever? Or just a very bad case oftraveler's diarrhea? |
| United Nations (gang) | I thought that organization was going tobring world peace and prevent future wars once for all! |
| Angie Sanclemente Valencia | A former lingerie model alleged to have run one of the largest drug cartels in the world. |
| Clement Vallandigham | A lawyer who proved his client had not killed a man, but the victim had shot himself... by shooting himself dead. |
| Whipping Tom | The name given to multiple London sex attackers. One of them, upon seeing an unaccompanied woman, would grab her, lift her dress, and slap her buttocks repeatedly before fleeing. He would sometimes accompany his attacks by shouting "Spanko!" |
| Wet feet, dry feet policy | America seems to not like wet feet. |
| 2008 French mistaken virginity case | France's most bizarre lawsuit: an angry man takes legal action against his newly married wife for not being a virgin. |
| 62 Cases of Jam v. United States | When is imitation jam notjam? |
| Batman v. Commissioner | Batman said his teenage son was his partner. The Commissioner wasn't having any of it. |
| FTC v. Balls of Kryptonite | In some ways, the U.S. governmentis more powerful than Superman. |
| Hermesmann v. Seyer | A Kansas Supreme Court case that decided that a 13-year-old boy who was molested by his 17-year-old babysitter had to pay for her child support. |
| Iceland v Iceland Foods Ltd | Who has a greater claim to the name Iceland -a country established in 874 or aBritish retailer founded in 1970? |
| Jarvis v Swans Tours Ltd | A legal complaint about the lack ofgemütlichkeit during a Swiss Christmas holiday. |
| Lawsuits against supernatural beings | Even if you can serve process on them, they are unlikely to show up in court. |
| Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc. | Would you expect to be able to swap 7 million points (worth $700,000) for aHarrier jump jet (worth $22 million)? This man did and tookPepsi to court when they failed to supply him one. Unsurprisingly – to everyone except him – he lost the case. |
| Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber | Do you still count as "executed" even if you didn't die? This was a surprisingly contentious issue. |
| Manacled Mormon case | The religious rape case that became a movie and involved the cloning of a dog. |
| Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc. | The lawsuit that occurred because of a parody song about abarbie girl living in a barbie world. |
| Memoirs v. Massachusetts | A U.S. Supreme Court case concerning whether the 1748 bookFanny Hill was entitled to First Amendment protection. One of the dissenting opinions contained an extensive discussion of the supposedly pornographic content. |
| McMartin preschool trial | The most expensive trial in US history. Amid the 1980s'day-care sex-abuse hysteria, hundreds of children wasted 7 years of court time and $15 million of public money by telling bizarre and fanciful tall tales. |
| Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft | When your name is too good not to buy a domain name featuring. |
| Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Georgia | Can a city require a business license for a talking cat, and does the cat have free-speech rights? |
| Monkey selfie copyright dispute | An actual monkey made a monkey out of the law. |
| Nix v. Hedden | TheUS Supreme Court decides that thetomato is a vegetable, not a fruit. |
| Pearson v. Chung | Also known as the $54 million pants case, or "The Great American Pants Suit" according to oneWall Street Journal reporter. |
| Stambovsky v. Ackley | Also known as the "Ghostbusters case", the court ruled that a house inNyack, New York was legally haunted byghosts. |
| State v. Linkhaw | He sang so badly in church that a jury found him guilty of "disturbing a religious congregation". |
| Tickle v. Giggle | Yes, this is a real trial name. |
| Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson | The first and only murder case where demonic possession was used as a defense. |
| Toy Biz, Inc. v. United States | Are theX-Men humans under U.S. law? |
| Trial of the Pyx | Whence the British Pound lands in court every year. |
| TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp. | $19,000 in compensatory damages, $10 million in punitive damages. |
| United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff | Who has jurisdiction over Satan? |
| Category:United Statesin rem cases | Suing inanimate objects? No, those are just the case titles. |
| United States v. 11 1/4 Dozen Packages of Articles Labeled in Part Mrs. Moffat's Shoo-Fly Powders for Drunkenness | The FDA will not toleratemisbranding. |
| United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins | The fins won a case that turned on whether buying something from someone counts as "aiding or assisting" them. |
| United States v. Causby | Planes vs. farmers. |
| United States v. Ninety-Five Barrels Alleged Apple Cider Vinegar | When is apple cider vinegar not apple cider vinegar? |
| United States v. Strong | A court case about someone who supposedly had an accident in a courtroom's bathroom, covering much of it. |
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| Bachelor tax | Implicit in many jurisdictions which offer a marital tax relief. |
| Beard tax | Used to be imposed in England and Russia. |
| Breast tax | An unusualtax meant to enforce thecaste system in an indirect way. |
| Chicken tax | A U.S. tariff on trucks, which resulted in a period of chicken trade related tension known as the Chicken War. |
| Flatulence tax | When you keep a lot of cattle, you're contributing significantly to thegreenhouse effect ... aren't you? |
| Taxation of illegal income in the United States | Don't worry: you can deduct your illegal activity expenses. |
| Bamboo torture | Death by a growingbamboo shoot. |
| Blood eagle | The "wings" were your lungs pulled out through your back. |
| Brazen bull | Encased in bronze and boiled to death, with wind instruments attached so your screams would turn into moos. Notable victims: its inventor andthe guy it was invented for. |
| Charivari | A form of vigilantism, more loud than violent. |
| Disneyland with the Death Penalty | Best way to describeSingapore according toWilliam Gibson. |
| Drunkard's cloak | Attire for the village drunk. |
| Enhanced interrogation techniques | No inhumane torture over here... |
| Half-hanging | For when you don't want to go all the way. |
| Hanged, drawn and quartered | Dark Ages punishment for high treason. |
| Music in psychological operations | Music used to especially tortureprisoners of war. |
| Pitchcapping | A hat made of tar was molded on to your head, then ripped off, taking your skin with it. See alsotarring and feathering. |
| Poena cullei | Taking a fatal trip down the river with a dog, snake, monkey, and rooster (none of whom did anything wrong). |
| Republican marriage | A form of execution in which a naked man and woman are tied together and drowned. (What did you think it was?) |
| Rhaphanidosis | For sex crimes in classical times, you got a radish shoved up your rear. |
| Riding a rail | Not being punished on a train – rather, you'd be paraded to the edge of town on a solitary fence rail and dumped on the roadside. |
| Scaphism | Probably the worst ever execution method – the condemned was enclosed in a pair of boats, covered with milk and honey, and eaten to death by insects. |
| Schwedentrunk | Victims were bound and were forced to swallow large amounts of foul liquid, usuallyexcrement. |
| Scold's bridle | Amuzzle for the nagging wife. |
| Washing out the mouth with soap | That'll teach you to say dirty words! |
| Whipping boy | A boy who received corporal punishment for misdemeanors of a prince; as well as some of his privileges. |
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| Abeguwo | Remember when you were a kid, and joked that the rain was peeing? Well... |
| Adorcism | For when youwant spirits inside you. |
| Asher yatzar | A Jewish blessing, read to praise the ability to excrete urine or faeces. |
| Axinomancy | Foretelling the future by looking at an axe or hatchet. |
| Ben Hana | A homeless man inWellington,New Zealand who worshiped theMāorisun-godRa (not to be confused with theancient Egyptian sun-godRa). |
| Bhekuli Biya | "Frog marriage", designed to bring rain. At least one has ended in divorce in order to stop floods. |
| Blood Quran | A Quran supposedly written inSaddam Hussein's blood. |
| Braco (faith healer) | Meet the Gazer and be healed with a singleglance. |
| Cargo cult | Tribal rites and rituals developed in the belief they will attract the goods, wealth and materials – the "cargo" – of a more technologically advanced and affluent culture. |
| Coca-Cola Fatwa | It's the real thing... and thankfully, it's not haram. |
| Coconut Religion | A religion founded in Vietnam that advocates subsisting solely off of coconuts and coconut milk, created a "Coconut Kingdom" on an islet of the Mekong River, and referred to its leader and founder as "His Coconutship". |
| Crepitus | A Roman god of flatulence (allegedly). |
| Ded Moroz | Like Santa, but Russian, and blue. |
| Dendera light | Does an engraving of the Egyptian creation myth show that Ancient Egypt had lightbulbs? As it turns out, no. |
| Dhana Kumari Bajracharya | A woman did not walk for 60 years. |
| Disconnection (Scientology) | The result of a poor signal withScientology. |
| Fluffy bunny | A controversialepithet inWicca. |
| Gang Bing | After his act of self-castration, he became thepatron saint ofeunuchs. |
| Haitian Vodou and homosexuality | Surely a troll, you say? No! A perfectly legitimate article! |
| High-Heel Wedding Church | Want to get married in a giant shoe inTaiwan? |
| International date line in Judaism andJewish law in the polar regions | Jewish law can get tricky when you travel to Hawaii... or go for a hike near the North Pole. |
| Jerusalem syndrome | For some people, a visit there is just too much. |
| Jewish pope Andreas | A Jewish pope..? |
| Johnson cult | Was US PresidentLyndon B. Johnson worshiped as a god inPapua New Guinea? |
| Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory | Can't decide whether toblame the Jews orthe Freemasons? The conspiracy nuts have you covered. |
| Kachera | Sikh underwear. |
| Kapo (mythology) | The Hawaiian fertility goddess, known for having a detachable vagina. |
| Khecarī mudrā | How to maximise your spiritual energy: shove your tongue up your nose. |
| List of games that Buddha would not play | Including, it appears, a predecessor to chess. |
| List of UFO religions | Our Father, which art in spaceship... |
| Lou de Palingboer | God sells eels? |
| Jesús Malverde | A popular saint among drug dealers in Mexico. |
| Matshishkapeu | The "fart man" ofInnu mythology. Don't cross him or he'll make you constipated. |
| Missionary Church of Kopimism | To Ctrl+C is human; to Ctrl+V is divine. |
| Mizab al-Rahma | The holiestrain gutter in Islam. |
| Oomoto | L. L. Zamenhof askami. |
| Open-source religion | And we're not talking about theChurch of Emacs either. |
| Overseas Shinto | Turns out, even despite the fact that mostOverseas Japanese are followers of Buddhism and most followers of Shintoism live in Japan, Shintoism can be followed overseas. |
| Prince Philip movement | A religious movement on the island ofTanna inVanuatu which holds thatQueen Elizabeth II's late husband,Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was a divine being. |
| Pseudoskepticism | The philosophical or scientific argument that tries to appearskeptical, but really is trying to prove a position, as in "I don’t see enough evidence that we landed on the moon". |
| Raël | A French journalist who started areligion named after himself in the 1970s. |
| Religion in Antarctica | There's no continent on Earth without organized religion. |
| Reincarnation Application | Must be filed by allliving Buddha within thePeople's Republic of China before they are allowed toreincarnate. |
| Religious pareidolia | A tendency to see religious imagery in the textures of corn chips, cinnamon rolls, toast, clouds, etc. |
| Saint Urho | A fictitious saint of Finland created in Minnesota. |
| Silver Sisterhood | A bizarre neo-Victorian Irish spiritual movement with a sideline in creatingtext adventure games, includingthe first 18-rated game. |
| Sin-eater | An old belief that someone eating over a body would consume the sins of the deceased. |
| Space opera in Scientology | L. Ron Hubbard's history of the universe, including alien Invader Forces, "little orange-colored bombs that would talk" and brainwashing episodes in "a railway carriage quite like a British railway coach with compartments". |
| John Murray Spear | This guy thoughtFrankenstein was a how-to guide, and created Robo-Jesus. |
| Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case | How a British schoolteacher teaching overseas in Sudan got in trouble for letting her six-year-old students name a teddy bear "Muhammad". |
| Taghairm | A couple of uncomfortable methods of fortune telling. |
| Temple of Priapus | A religion based on the worship of thephallus. |
| Tlazōlteōtl | Aztec god of vice, purification, steam baths, lust, filth, and a patroness ofadulterers. |
| Toilet god | God living in the toilet. |
| Turtles all the way down | A myth about the nature of the universe, or perhaps a myth about a myth about the nature of the universe. |
| United Nation of Islam | Royall, Allah in Person claims to have spent the 1980s in a spaceship with angels who informed him that he was God and instructed him on how to govern the world. Public records say he was a truck driver. |
| Universe People | Specific cult in Czech Republic and Slovakia. |
| The Urantia Book | Over two thousand pages of anonymous, religious,subconscious ramblings on religion and "God" (whatever that means in the billion planets out there). |
| Xenu | An ancient interstellar dictator who unleashed a genocide which createdChristianity andpsychiatry and whose story is "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc.) anyone who attempts to solve it". |
| Yakub (Nation of Islam) | Mad scientist creates white race. |
| 1268–1271 papal election | If you think modern conclaves take a bit long, consider this one; it took three years, after magistrates had locked the cardinals in and torn the roof off the building to force them into a decision. It's the reason why the conclave works as it does in the first place. |
| Carlo Acutis | Gamers don't die, they getcanonized. |
| Adam–God doctrine | A previous belief held bythe Mormons that said Adam was a space alien who became God on his death. |
| Alexamenos graffito | Possibly the oldest depiction of thecrucifixion of Jesus was made by a boy mocking his Christian peer by depicting the Messiah with a donkey for a head. |
| The All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters | Started byPeter the Great, and consisted mostly of drinking and partying. |
| As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly | An oldie but a goodie from the Bible. |
| Jim Bakker | Televangelist foundsa Christian theme park so successful that it competes with Disneyland, gets arrested for fraud and loses his park, then promptly returns to televangelism upon release. Also admitted to never fully reading the Bible until his imprisonment, and to getting information on it fromLyndon LaRouche. |
| Banquet of Chestnuts | Enough to make even the most committed and diehardRoman Catholic agree that the church was in a pretty poor state at the time of theReformation. |
| Bible errata | A typesetter's complaint finds justification inPsalm 119. |
| Cadaver Synod | In897,Pope Stephen VI had the body of the former Pope that appointed him,Pope Formosus exhumed, dressed in papalvestments and then seated on a throne while he read charges against it and conducted a trial. |
| Caganer | A traditionalCatalan statue, similar to agarden gnome, that depicts a persondefecating. Often included in Catalannativity scenes or other Christmas decorations. |
| Christmas in Nazi Germany | TheNazi Party reinventedChristmas by removing a certain baby boy raised in theJewish faith. |
| Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God | A fundamentalist Mormon group with a surprisingly large body count. |
| Chute na santa incident | An infamous kicking of a saint. Apparently done to one-up a rival TV network's previous blasphemous broadcasting. |
| Clare of Assisi | Because she claimed to have seen and heard Mass on the walls when she was ill, she was made the patron saint of television in 1958, despite dying 674 years before television was invented. |
| Harold Davidson | A 1930sChurch of England clergyman, known as "The Prostitutes'Padre", who wasdefrocked and later died after being mauled by a toothless lion. |
| Donus II | A Pope falsely believed to have existed during the 970s, and was recognized as a legitimate Pope for two centuries. |
| Ejaculatory prayer | A short and impulsive prayernot—as the name may suggest—a prayer related to ejaculation. |
| Ruben Enaje | A former construction worker from the Philippines who has been voluntarilycrucified 36 times as of 2025. |
| Ezekiel 23 | One of the odder visions from God: a piece ofRule 34 with Samaria and Jerusalem portrayed as women who sleep around. |
| The Family International | A Christian-ish cult founded bya man too nutty even for Jim Jones and focused on sex. Followers' relationship with Jesus is erotic (with men having to imagine themselves as women so it isn't gay), and they previously usedFlirty Fishing, where prostitution meets proselytizing. You won't be surprised to hear that there's a lot of child sexual abuse involved. |
| Feast of the Ass | No... this isn't aboutthat ass. It's an old tradition where a girl and a child on a donkey go to church together, with the donkey sitting beside the altar during the sermon. |
| Freedomites | A Canadianreligious cult that bombed and set fire to public buildings. All while nude. |
| Gambling on papal conclaves | How much you wanna bet he's going to be Catholic? |
| General Butt Naked | A former Liberian warlord whofound Christ and now preaches to the communities he committed atrocities against would be pretty odd even if he weren't called...that. |
| Great Disappointment | Hundreds of people were convinced the world would end on a very specific date. Turns out they were wrong.Ahem. |
| Hell house | A type of Christian horror house to make children more pious. |
| Holy Prepuce | One of severalrelics purported to be associated withJesus. Also known as The Holy Foreskin. (See alsoCircumcision of Jesus.) |
| Jesus H. Christ | Does it stand for Henry? |
| Kolob | God's home planet, so say the Mormons. |
| List of people claimed to be Jesus | Christ has risen...again...and again. |
| LOLCat Bible Translation Project | In teh beginnin, Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez an da urfs n stuffz... |
| Luce | Don't mess with thisjubilee mascot! She has the power ofGod andanime on her side! |
| Mental health of Jesus | It's always "How can I see the Son of God?" and never "is he okay?". |
| Miracle of the Sun | 70,000 people in Portugal gather to witness a miracle and are treated to an inexplicable solar event. |
| Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God | Suicide cult or mass murder? You decide. |
| Murder of Wu Shuoyan | Attacked by cultists in a McDonald's. |
| Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible | The Bible refers to lost books – evenpagan ones – much more than you'd think. |
| Omphalos hypothesis | The answer to all the evidence againstcreationism – maybe the Earth was created tolook like it was billions of years old! |
| Phallic saint | Figures of holy people, but a hundred times more hung. |
| Pope Joan | Medieval documents cite the existence of a female pope – proof of a Vatican cover up or a blasphemous slur? |
| Pope John numbering | There have been 21 legitimate Popes John, but there have been two known as John XXIII. |
| Pope Michael | Elected Pope in 1990 (by six people, including his parents) as aconclavist opponent to the current Pope, while not even an ordained priest. |
| Pornocracy | A near-60-year period, also known asSaeculum obscurum or the "Rule of the Harlots", where the Popes were controlled by the women of acorrupt noble family. |
| Prophecy of the Popes | According to this document, thePope is the one who will bring about the fall of Rome. Most aren't convinced. |
| Rod of Iron Ministries | The cult of theAR-15, which holds ceremonies where firearms are blessed and whose leader wears a crown of bullets. |
| Rumspringa | Amish Gone Wild. |
| Saint Guinefort | A Saint who was also a dog. Not to be confused withthis Saint, who was also a dog, Sort of, orthe Saint whose name isa breed of dog |
| Secret Gospel of Mark | An incredibly elaborate forgery, or proofJesus was gay? |
| Self-crucifixion of Mattio Lovat | An Italian attempts to crucify himself in public settings. Two times. And prevented by passerby in both attempts. |
| Seventh-day Adventist Church in Tonga | One of only a few territories (others notably including Samoa and Kiribati) where the famously Saturday-observing church observes the Sabbath on Sunday. |
| Skoptsy | "Holy"emasculation, started by a man who claimed to be adeceased emperor. |
| St. James-Bond Church | No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and saviour! |
| Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera | Was Jesus' father buried in Germany? |
| Unfulfilled Christian religious predictions | Doomsdays that didn't. |
| Wicked Bible | A 1631 reprint of theKing James Bible, which rendered commandment number 7 as "Thou shalt commit adultery". |
| Zipporah at the inn | God apparently tries (and fails) to killMoses. |
| Church of the SubGenius | Created in Texas, it preaches that a1950s salesman, who is also a yeti, is the Messiah and tries to protect people from the numerous conspiracies that haunt their lives. |
| Dinkoism | The belief that a Malayalam Mighty Mouse ripoff is the one true God and the creator of the Universe. |
| Flying Spaghetti Monster | The basis of asatirical religion created to make fun ofintelligent design. |
| Iglesia Maradoniana | A religion with the Argentine footballerDiego Maradona as its god. |
| Invisible Pink Unicorn | You can't prove it doesn't exist. |
| Jedi census phenomenon | According to the 2001 census, "Jedi Knight" was the fourth-largest "religion" in England and Wales. |
| Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption | A legally recognized religion created by comedianJohn Oliver for the sole purpose of exempting his show from taxes by way of theReligious Tax Exemption. |
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| Adrian Carton de Wiart | Fought in two World Wars, shot repeatedly, survived two plane crashes, escaped a POW camp, married a countess, and amputated his own fingers when his doctor refused. Also looked like a pirate. |
| Angels of Mons | Phantom bowmen from theBattle of Agincourt rose up from the dead to enact justice on the invadingGerman Empire during theBattle of Mons... supposedly. |
| Michael Angelo Aquino | U.S. Army officer,psychological warfare specialist and advocate for them to be used on American civilians... oh, and founder and high priest of anoccult magic order. |
| Vasily Arkhipov | One man who averted theUnited States and theSoviet Union causing theend of the world. |
| Bolivian Navy | A 5,000 man navy for a landlocked country whoreally miss having a coastline. |
| Boot Monument | In celebration ofBenedict Arnold's foot. |
| List of camoufleurs | Pioneering artists in the field of military camouflage. |
| Caspian Sea Monster | Actually a product of theCold War. |
| Jack Churchill | Longbows and broadswords weren't used in World War II. Or were they? |
| The Crucified Soldier | A Canadian soldier who was reportedlycrucified with bayonets during theSecond Battle of Ypres...ouch. |
| CONOP 8888 | ThePentagon's zombie apocalypse plan. |
| Boston Corbett | English-born soldier who killedJohn Wilkes Booth. Devoutly religious to the point of eccentricity, he was later committed to a mental institution, and disappeared after escaping from it. |
| D-DayDaily Telegraph crossword security alarm | Crossword puzzles: A major danger to national security. |
| Demob suit | Imagine the feeling: you've come back from war and they've given you a nice civilian suit, but it's too small for you. |
| Devil Eyes | This CIApsyop plan called forHasbro to makeG.I. Joe style figures ofOsama bin Laden with a hidden demon face underneath. |
| Dreadnought hoax | A practical joke at the expense of theRoyal Navy, inspiring the influentialBloomsbury Group. |
| Guy Gabaldon | Helped capture over a thousand Japanese soldiers during the WWII battle forSaipan when he was only 18. |
| Juan Pujol García | A spy who worked as a double agent for the Nazis and the United Kingdom duringWorld War II. |
| General Butt Naked | Don't laugh. |
| Henry Gunther | The last man to die in World War I, and quite possibly the dumbest. |
| Simo Häyhä | Showed some extraordinary Finnishsisu in theWinter War against theSoviets. |
| Ice cream barge | Warning! Delicious creamy goodness ahead! |
| Kamikaze | A series of typhoons which were said to have prevented two Mongol fleets from invading Japan, seven years apart. |
| Koshiro Tanaka | Asalaryman who decided he wanted to do more with his life... and achieved this by joiningthe mujahideen to fight the Soviets. |
| Aimo Koivunen | Finnish soldier in theContinuation War, and first documented case of meth overdose during combat. |
| Lehi | AZionistmilitant group founded in 1940 whooxymoronically tried to ally with theNazis. |
| Line-crossing ceremony | Aninitiation rite performed when a ship crosses theequator. |
| Alan Mcilwraith | A call center worker who pretended to be a British Army officer, and then pretended to be a magician. |
| Wilmer McLean | It can be said that theAmerican Civil War both started and ended in one man's front yard. |
| Miss Russian Army | Abeauty contest minus the swimsuit competition but plus the automatic weapons drills. |
| Montauk Project | Real military science experiment or urban legend? Maybe the civilians who were in full view of the military base will be able to tell you. |
| Moro Islamic Liberation Front | A rebel, some might say terrorist, group in the Southern Philippines who may or may not be aware that their initials are also an acronym formom I'd like to... |
| Mozart Group | An ambitious American private military company created for the purpose of supporting Ukraine during the2022 Russian invasion. Fell apart after less than a year due largely to underfunding, infighting and rowdy soldier behavior. |
| Navies of landlocked countries | Mongolia once had one of the world's largest navies. Today they have one vessel with a crew of seven sailors, one of them able to swim. |
| Nebraska Admiral | Thelandlocked U.S. state ofNebraska and its "Great Navy". |
| Night Witches | An all-women Soviet bomber regiment who, despite flying in wooden training planes (or perhaps because of it), were highly successful and featured 23 differentHeroes of the Soviet Union. |
| NORAD Tracks Santa | A tradition with the American and Canadian military to trackSanta Claus for children. |
| Hiroo Onoda | A Japanese soldier who hid out in the Philippines during World War II, refusing to surrender until 1974. |
| Stanislav Petrov | Another man who potentially averted nuclear war. |
| Pentagon UFO videos | Yes, they're official. |
| Philadelphia Experiment | An alleged experiment in 1943 involving electromagnetic technology to render vessels invisible. |
| Portuguese Fireplace | A fireplace in the middle of theNew Forest. |
| Project A119 | If you can't land onthe Moon, nuke it. |
| Ratlines | The underground secret lines for fleeing Nazis after World War II. |
| Russian warship, go fuck yourself | An eternalized catchphrase of the Russo-Ukrainian war. |
| Shi Yousan | Early 20th-century Chinese general who seemingly made it his life mission to betray everyone he met. |
| Siachen Glacier | The world's highest battlefield, with very predictable terrain. |
| Otto Skorzeny | His career reads like several thriller novels in a row; he worked for theNazis,Franco,Nasser,Perón, and apparentlyMossad as a hit man (without ever denouncing Nazism). |
| Henry Tandey | Allegedly met a young Adolf Hitler during World War I and spared his life. |
| The terrorists have won | Or have they? |
| András Toma | A Hungarian soldier taken as a prisoner of war by the USSR in 1945 and declared dead... until he turned up in a Russian mental hospital in 2000, having not spoken to anyone for 55 years. |
| Lauri Törni | Fought in theFinnish Army,Waffen-SS, andUnited States Army, in that order. Only member of the Waffen-SS interred inArlington National Cemetery. |
| USSGyatt | Does that thing have guided missiles? It does... |
| USSWilliam D. Porter | The US Navy's unluckiest ship ever? |
| Wartime cross-dressers | Because war demands proper fashion. |
| William Stuart-Houston | His original surname was Hitler, and fought in World War II... on the side of the United States. The last surviving member of theHitler family. |
| Tsutomu Yamaguchi | Survived both theHiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 1945. See alsoJacob Beser. |
| Yang Kyoungjong | A mysterious Korean soldier said to have served Japan, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. |
| Z (military symbol) | A modern symbol of Russian military might is a letter they don't even use. |
| Zeppelin LZ 66 | Real-life sky pirates. |
| Zhang Zongchang | Eccentric Chinese warlord who, among other things, assigned numbers to his many concubines, as he could not remember all of their names. |
| Corporal Jackie | A baboon owned by a draftee who didn't want to leave him behind, he ended the First World War as a South African corporal, having picked up several injuries and a habit of saluting superior officers. |
| Dickin Medal | Only awarded to animals. |
| Moose cavalry | The supposed moose cavalries ofSweden andRussia. |
| Sergeant Stubby | The only dog to be promoted to sergeant through combat. |
| United States Camel Corps | Full-blooded Arabian mount, imported! |
| Wojtek | Arguably the most extraordinary soldier of all time. |
| 1998 Sokcho submarine incident | North Korean submarine becomes entangled in a large South Korean fishing net. All of the crew aboard perished before it could be towed to port. |
| Anglo-Zanzibar War | The world's shortest war. It literally lasted 38 minutes. |
| Attack of the Dead Men | Russian combatants looking like zombies win the battle by scaring away the Germans. |
| Attack on Marstrand | A Danish-Norwegian siege in Sweden that succeeded partly becausethe Danish commander used all sorts of trickery to force a Swedish surrender. One popular story tells that he ordered his soldiers to walk slowly and in larger groups so it looked like there were more of them. |
| Bahia incident | Did you know that the American Civil War also took place inBrazil? |
| Battle of Castle Itter | American and German soldiers team up against the Nazis in a battle for amedieval castle. Not the first German vs. German conflict in the last days of the Second World War, though; see alsoOperation Cowboy. |
| Battle of Domažlice | AHussite army routs the twice as numerouscrusading Holy Roman army withthe power of singing. |
| Battle of Fishguard | That time when France tried to invade Wales, got drunk and surrendered because they took the British forces too seriously. |
| Battle of Karánsebes | How the Austrians fought against themselves over liquor and resulted in 1,200 own casualties. |
| Battle of Lake Baikal | Czechoslovak Legionnares stole a steamship and won a naval battle against theRed Army. |
| Battle of Tanga | AWorld War I battle where 8,000 British troops were defeated by a German-led force of 1,100Askaris – aided by swarms of angry bees. |
| Battle of the Crater | If you're going to blow up the enemy, don't run into the crater right after and let them shoot you like fish in a barrel. |
| Battle of the Herrings | An incident during thesiege of Orléans, where French and Scottish forces attempted to stop a supply convoy full of barrels of herring. |
| Chen Sheng and Wu Guang uprising | When you're subject to execution for being late, what else can you do but revolt? |
| Dai Hong Dan incident | North Korea and theUnited States team up to defeatSomali pirates. |
| Eclipse of Thales | Lydia andMedia had been fighting for six years, until an eclipse happening during one of their battles abruptly convinced them to stop. |
| Empresa de China | Spain's plan for an Iberian-Filipino-Japanese motley crew to take over China. Cancelled after England sunk the Armada. |
| Emu War | Final score for this one: Emus 1, Australians 0. |
| Exercise Tiger | Fire live ammunition over your troops' headsand do so in close proximity to enemy boats? What could possibly go wrong? |
| Flagstaff War | A war that started between British military forces and the indigenous Polynesian people in New Zealand after a flagstaff was cut down four times. |
| Football War | A six-day war fought betweenEl Salvador andHonduras in 1969 that was triggered by a game offootball (soccer). |
| Gombe Chimpanzee War | A four-year war, fought between two groups of chimpanzees in Tanzania. |
| Huéscar | When one town joineda war on the opposite side from the rest of its country, then forgot about it for 170 years. |
| If Day | A simulated Nazi invasion of the Canadian city ofWinnipeg, complete with book-burning, arrests of politicians, and newspaper censorship. |
| Incident at Petrich | Greek soldier chases his pooch across the Bulgaria border. Warfare nearly ensues. |
| Invasion of Iceland | How do you stop an enemy nation from invading a neutral country? By invading it yourself, as the British did. |
| Iowa Cow War | A battle between cow ranchers and the state of Iowa over tuberculosis testing. |
| Lobster War | A particularly heated dispute over whether lobsters swim or walk. |
| Ochomogo War | In 1823, Costa Rica had a civil war to join acountry that had already disappeared. |
| Operation Cottage | The Japanese never showed up. |
| Operation Gideon (2020) | An amateur attempt byVenezuelan dissidents to invade and overthrow the government ofVenezuela with 2 boats that were intercepted before even reaching shore |
| Operation Mincemeat | The true story behindthe best-reviewed West End musical of all time. |
| Operation Pastorius | Hitler's disastrous attempt to sabotage America from the inside, including one guy who left his confidential documents on a train, two others who accidentally revealed they were secret agents, and two who just turned themselves in. |
| Operation Paul Bunyan | An American and South Korean military operation conducted over a tree. |
| Operation Pig Bristle | A daring air force operation to transport 25 tonnes of pig bristles fromChongqing in China toHong Kong during theChinese Civil War. The bristles were shipped to Australia to be made into paint brushes. |
| Operation Red Dog | A group of American and Canadian white supremacists plot to independentlyfilibustera small Caribbean nation. A plan straight from the mid-1800s: foiled in 1981. |
| Operation Tamarisk | Claimed to be the most successful intelligence operation in the Cold War; emptying supplies of Soviet toilet paper, forcing them to use documents, and retrieving these documents after use. |
| Operation Wikinger | Poor communication leads to the German air force scoring a great victory ... against the German navy. |
| Pastry War | Looting a pastry shop? This means war! |
| Pig War | A war between the United States and the British Empire that almost erupted over one deadpig. |
| Taiping Rebellion | One of the most lethal wars in history centers around a Chinese man claiming to be the brother ofJesus Christ. |
| Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War | A "war" that lasted 335 years without a single shot being fired, between theNetherlands and the tinyIsles of Scilly. |
| Toledo War | A war between theState of Ohio and theMichigan Territory that resulted in one injury and over a century of bitterness. |
| Toyota War | A war in the last phase of theChadian–Libyan conflict, named after the Toyota trucks that were used in the battle. |
| Turkish Abductions | A 1627slave raid byTurkish pirates off the coast ofIceland. |
| Vue Pa Chay's revolt | A colonial tax revolt also known as the "Madman's War" due to being led by a guy who would climb trees to take orders from heaven. |
| War of the Bucket | Supposedly started whenModenese soldiers stole a bucket from a city well inBologna. (They actually stole it laterduring the war as a trophy) |
| War of Jenkins' Ear | A nine-year war, started when CaptainRobert Jenkins complained that the Spanish Coastguard had cut off his ear. |
| War of the Donkey | Two Venetian noble families go to war over a single donkey. Just one. It probably died during the conflict anyway. |
| War of the League of Cambrai | Started whenFrance and thePope attackedVenice; ended when France and Venice defeated literallyeveryoneelseinWesternEurope. |
| War Plan Red | US war plans from the 1930s to invade Canada in the unlikely event of war with the United Kingdom. Also see the counterpart war planDefence Scheme No. 1 (the Canadian war plan to invade the United States). |
| Anti-tank dog | Man's best friend turns into man's worst weapon. Dogs were initially trained to leave bombs under tanks, which was eventually replaced by a detonate-upon-impact procedure. This, as you can imagine, killed the dog. |
| Antonov A-40 | The "flying tank", an experimental Soviet tank with wings and tailboom, meant to glide into the battlefield, ready for combat. Trials were unsuccessful. |
| Bat bomb | A World War II plan to bomb Japan with bats carrying tinyincendiary bombs. |
| Baynes Bat | An experimental British glider, designed to convert tanks into gliders which could fly into battle. |
| Bicycle infantry | Soldiers have occasionally been trained to use the bicycle for military purposes. |
| Blue Peacock | In case the Soviets decided they wanted the whole of Germany, the British planned to plant a bunch of nuclear landmines heated by chickens. |
| Bob Semple tank | New Zealand's attempt at armed warfare during World War II consisted of iron plates and a few guns strapped on to a tractor. |
| Cornfield Bomber | AnF-106 jet fighter made a perfectgear-up landing in a farmer's field –after the pilot hadejected at 15,000 feet (4,600 m). |
| Dazzle camouflage | A colorful way to hide in plain sight. |
| Davy Crockett | A portable nuclear weapon. |
| Double-barreled cannon | A failed civil war era attempt to create a weapon of mass destruction. Now a monument in Athens, Georgia. |
| Explosive rat | A World War II weapon designed to causeboiler explosions. Never used, yet still a success. |
| Gay bomb | A speculative non-lethal chemical weapon that could be dropped on enemy troops to cause "homosexual behaviour". Not to be confused with thefag bomb. |
| German submarineU-1206 | A Nazi submarine that was attacked by British forces after it was forced to surface due to a malfunctioning toilet. |
| Golden rivet | The hidden secret in every Navy ship (allegedly). |
| Grand Panjandrum | Britain's World War IICatherine wheel of death. |
| Harmonica gun | What's the best way to play theharmonica? Turn it into a weapon, of course! |
| History of military ballooning | Aerial warfare had to start somewhere. |
| HNLMSAbraham Crijnssen | A Navy ship that attempted to avoid detection by Japanese aircraft and escape back to Australia by having it disguised as a tropical island. |
| Human torpedo | Secret naval weapons of World War II. |
| Infernal machine | A homemade, 25-barrelvolley gun made to kill theFrench king. |
| Millwall brick | An improvised weapon constructed from a newspaper. |
| Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards | A set ofplaying cards created by U.S. Army soldiers featuring the most-wanted Iraqis, withSaddam Hussein as theace of spades. |
| NI tank | 69improvised tanks made due to Soviet shortages during theSiege of Odessa; almost all were captured after the city fell toRomania. |
| Pigeon vest | Little vests for pigeons manufactured by a women's underwear company. |
| Project Habakkuk | A British plan to construct anaircraft carrier out ofice (pykrete). |
| Project Pigeon | Bombs guided by pigeon pecks. |
| Project Plowshare | The search for peaceful uses of nuclear bombs. Most audacious and impractical idea: nuking a 160-mile canal out of Israel. |
| Puckle gun | A gun with square bullets, to "convince the Turks of the benefits of Christian civilization". Appear inAssassin's Creed Rogue. |
| Schwerer Gustav | The largest piece of artillery ever used in combat. |
| Skunk (weapon) | A nonlethal weapon with an extremely strong odor that may linger on clothes foryears. |
| SMUB-85 | A GermanU-boat which was forced to surface, and subsequently captured, due to a giantsea monster attack. |
| Sticky bomb | The most unpopular weapon the British soldier has ever been asked to use. |
| Tachanka | Twentieth centurychariot used in combat. |
| Tsar Tank | AnImperial Russian tank designed as atricycle with nine-metre wheels. |
| United States Navy Marine Mammal Program | A U.S. Navy program which studies the military use ofbottlenose dolphins andCalifornia sea lions. |
| Whistling Dick | A cannon of "rather modest proportions". |
| Who Me | A top secretstench weapon designed to be unobtrusively sprayed on German officers byFrench Resistance members with a quite (in)appropriate name. |
| Vespa 150 TAP | Caution! Heavily armed scooter ahead! |
| Zhanmadao | An anti-horse sword. |
| Atacama skeleton | Remains found in Chile that caused much speculation about ancient aliens for 10 years, until they were discovered to just be of a foetus. |
| Badge Man | Unknown figure reportedly visible atop thegrassy knoll in theMoorman photo of theKennedy assassination. |
| Black Volga | The car that makes peopledisappear in the Eastern Bloc. Its equivalent on the other side of the Iron Curtain is theblack helicopter. |
| Mercy Brown vampire incident | One of the best documented cases of vampire investigation. |
| Dan Burros | Neo-Nazi who committed suicide after being outed as Jewish, met with pity more than hatred by other neo-Nazis afterwards. |
| Richard Chase | The only way to stop theNazi-controlledUFOs from poisoning yourmacaroni and cheese is to inject yourself with animal blood and eat human brains. |
| Coffin birth | When a pregnant woman dies, the decomposition of her body can result in a gas build-up that causes the fetus inside her to be expelled. |
| Collyer brothers | Whenpackratting was taken to a tragic extreme. |
| The Dawn of the Black Hearts | Black metal musician takes staged photograph ofhis recently deceased bandmate, photograph outlives him despite being destroyed. |
| Death by coconut | You can die if a coconut falls on your coconut. |
| Death by GPS | "In a quarter mile, turn right ontoAfterlife Way." |
| Death during consensual sex | These two are not related to each other. Usually. |
| Death erection | |
| Death from laughter | Don't laugh – it's happened. |
| Death by misadventure | Death probably due after one saying "Hold my beer, and watch this!" |
| Death by vending machine | A penny wise and several hundred pounds foolish. |
| Death Master File | No, it's not aBond villain's kill list. It's just theSSA keeping track of everyone who dies in theUnited States. Wait... |
| Defenestration | The time-honoured tradition of throwing people out of windows. |
| Disappearance of Frederick Valentich | An Australian pilot disappeared in the ocean, having seen a strange object above his aircraft. No trace of either his body or the aircraft have been found. |
| Dyatlov Pass incident | A group of Russian hikers attempt to escape an unknown horror on "Death Mountain." |
| Euthanasia Coaster | A roller coaster intended to kill its passengers. |
| Execution by elephant | An unusual form ofcapital punishment used throughout history. (See alsoHistory of elephants in Europe.) |
| Fan death | A persistenturban legend inSouth Korea, where the media – and even medical professionals – regularly report on people dying because they left a fan running in a closed room. |
| Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead | An early catch phrase used onSaturday Night Live, based upon the dictator's lengthy death. |
| Ghost bike | Bicycle riderin memoriam. |
| Green Boots | A climber who became a landmark on Everest even after freezing to death. |
| Hammersmith nude murders | Murders that involved theother unidentifiedserial killer named Jack, with the title "the Stripper". |
| The Hands of Che Guevara | Documentary about the search for the severed hands of the Latin American guerrilla fighterErnesto Che Guevara, who was captured and executed by Bolivian Special Forces in October 1967. |
| Hell money | Apparently, the Chinese afterlife is subject tohyperinflation. |
| Sogen Kato | Believed to be the oldest living man inTokyo... until the discovery of his 30-year-old mummified corpse. |
| Kennedy curse | ApparentlyJohn F. Kennedy was not the only Kennedy to meet an early demise-far from it. |
| Kick the bucket | A heated argument lies behind the origin of this idiom. |
| Lampshades made from human skin | They probably wouldn't even be that good atdiffusing light. |
| Ricardo López | An obsessed fan who attempted to kill Icelandic singerBjörk by aletter bomb rigged withsulfuric acid. |
| Henry Lee Lucas | Claimed to bethe most prolific serial killer in history, confessing to over 600 murders. Later recanted almost all of them. |
| Children of Llullaillaco | Two incredibly well preserved cadavers of twoIncan children found next to theArgentina–Chile border. |
| List of English-language expressions related to death | "Go home in a box", "go bung", "hop the stick", ... |
| List of people who have died while on the toilet | You could say they died on the throne. |
| List of entertainers who died during a performance | "And for my last act...I shall die and not come back to life!" |
| List of postal killings | "Don't let Walter Hobbs deceive you; this life is not all shiny bins and fun", ... |
| List of selfie-related injuries and deaths | Extreme cases of people being unaware of their surroundings. |
| Lead masks case | Two electricians tried to contact aliens with psychedelic drugs and masks made out of lead. They died shortly after. |
| London Necropolis railway station | Single tickets only, unless you're a mourner or other visitor. |
| Lord Uxbridge's leg | The grisly afterlife of a leg lost during theBattle of Waterloo, formerly owned byHenry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey. |
| Maschalismos | The act of mutilating the dead to prevent them from rising again. |
| Matricide | Despite the article's name not starting with "List of", it mostly consists of a list of notable people who have killed their mothers. |
| Michael Malloy | LikeRasputin, buthomeless, drunk, andIrish. |
| Elmer McCurdy | A dead criminal whose mummified body was bought by carnies and used as a prop for decades, its later owners not even knowing the corpse was real. |
| Ken McElroy | "Nobody saw nothing" taken to its logical extreme. |
| Micromort | A quantitative death risk equivalent to one in a million. |
| Mordred | Mordred is back for revenge—watch out! |
| Murchison Murders | Why you should never discuss yourmurder mystery idea with someone who's planning a real murder. |
| Murder of Vivianne Ruiz | The first recorded "Jane Doe" in Australia, and a murder with enough twists and turns to be alegal drama. The case for the defence (unsuccessfully) contended that a bloody fingerprint found on a newspaper shoved down the victim's throat was actually tomato juice. |
| Herbert Mullin | Haven't had any earthquakes recently? Thank this man. |
| Oliver Cromwell's head | This English political leader's head has an interesting journey after its owner is posthumously executed, more so thanthe one he cut off himself. |
| Richard Paul Pavlick | Plotted to kill thenpresident-electJohn F. Kennedy via suicide bombing, but delayed it upon seeing Kennedy with his family. |
| Poe Toaster | Not a kitchen appliance, but a mysterious figure who paid an annual tribute to American authorEdgar Allan Poe. |
| Post-mortem photography | Back in the early days of photography it was common to take pictures of recently deceased loved ones, propped up to look as if they were alive. |
| Death of Gloria Ramirez | One of the most bizarre unsolved deaths ever documented. The media nicknamed her the "Toxic Lady". |
| Refrigerator death | A cool way to die. |
| Rookwood Cemetery railway line | A former railway line that served a cemetery nearSydney. |
| Safety coffin | Coffins manufactured just in case their tenant is not actually dead before being buried. |
| Salish Sea human foot discoveries | Severed feet keep washing up. |
| Frano Selak | Dubbed the luckiest/unluckiest man to exist, cheated death seven times and also managed to win the lottery! |
| Sky burial | It's not really a form of burial. Also known asjhator which means "giving alms to the birds." |
| Richard Wayne Snell | White supremacist and murderer, coincidentally executed on the same day as another, much largeract of white supremacist murder. |
| Sokushinbutsu | A practice of self-mummification among Buddhist monks. |
| Somerton Man | A dead man is found on an Australian beach with no identification and a bizarre fragment of a book in his pocket. To this day, his identity and cause of death are still unconfirmed. |
| Space burial | Around 150 people have had their remains interred in space. Or would that be ex-terred? |
| Spontaneous human combustion | The sudden burning of a person's body without any apparent source of ignition. |
| Suicide of Sunil Tripathi | "The perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing was... a student who'd already been dead for a month! We did it,Reddit!" |
| Carl Tanzler | A radiographer who became obsessed with a dead TB patient, had her exhumed, and lived with her corpse for 7 years. |
| Toilet-related injuries and deaths | As ifconstipation wasn't enough. |
| Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People | A group of Indians suffering more from theft than cardiac failure. Its founder managed to run for political office despite having been declared dead for over a decade. |
| Lal Bihari | |
| Vatican murders | 2 murders in a country with a population of 700 = world's highest annual homicide rate. |
| Video-Enhanced Grave Marker | Graves with video screens and speakers on them. |
| Joyce Vincent | A woman who sat dead in her home with the TV and heater running and Christmas presents on her lap for three years until her corpse was found. |
| Wikipedia coverage of death | It's more than just a rush to change every "is" to "was". |
| Xin Zhui | A remarkably preserved Chinese mummy from 163 B.C. with all features and soft tissue still intact. |
| YOGTZE case | Unemployed German man scrawls "YOGTZE" on a piece of paper, disappears into the night, is found dead the next morning. Still unsolved. |
Wikipedia is not afraid to tackle the tough questions:
| How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? | A proverbial question of theology. |
| If a tree falls in a forest | Philosophy meets the logging industry. |
| Meaning of life | Why are we here? What's life all about? |
| What Is It Like to Be a Bat? | Have you ever wondered that? No? Apparently this is one of the most important contemporary philosophical questions. |
| Where's the beef? | In 1984, people thought this was really funny for some reason. |
| Who put Bella in the wych elm? | Nobody knows, but artists and writers of graffiti remain interested. |
| Why did the chicken cross the road? | People have asked this for over 150 years. |
| List of American and British defectors in the Korean War | Yes, somehow yes? |
| List of animals awarded human credentials | Animals getting so-called diplomas fromdiploma mills. |
| List of barefooters | No shirt, no shoes, no service? |
| List of bow tie wearers | Nerds not included. |
| List of common misconceptions | A gold mine of strangeness. |
| Lists of Danish football transfers 2008–09 | Keep in mind that this is not just a list, this is alist of lists. |
| List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events | But in the end, nothing happened. |
| List of fictional catpeople | This one had an edit war over whether or notHermione Granger should be added. |
| List of foreign-born samurai in Japan | That's right. |
| List of garlic festivals | Evenone festival devoted entirely togarlic of all things is strange enough. |
| List of helicopter prison escapes | Yes, you read that right. |
| List of incidents at Disney parks | Donald Duck's anger issues are far from being your main concern at a Disney attraction. |
| List of inventors killed by their own invention | Including everyone fromMarie Curie toThomas Midgley Jr. |
| List of largest hourglasses | Wikipedia probably wasted as much time on this pointless list as it takes for one of these to run out. |
| List of lists of lists | A list of all lists of lists -- and yes,it contains itself. |
| List of non-water floods | Beep beep, massive waves of melted butter, wine, and chocolate coming through! |
| List of paraphilias | Just too many to list. |
| List of people imprisoned for editing Wikipedia | Yes, this has actually happened. |
| List of people who have been considered deities | People from emperors toJohn Coltrane have been considered deities. |
| List of people who have been pied | A pie to the face, usually as the result of differing political views. |
| List of people who have lived in airports | Quite a few, in reality. |
| List of potato museums | How are there enough to warrant a list? |
| List of scholarly publishing stings | Instances of people submitting fake or nonsense scholarly articles to expose an academic journal asa predatory publisher. |
| List of sexually active popes | A surprisingly long list for a supposedly celibate role. |
| List of shoe-throwing incidents | The recurring trend of high-ranking people being attacked with shoes. |
| List of wrong anthems incidents | Everything from playing the wrong country's anthem to playing Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca". |
| Category:Fictional balls | Categories for certain geometric objects in fiction. |
| Category:Fictional cubes | |
| Category:Creative works in fiction | Works of fiction as depicted in... works of fiction. |
| Category:Illeists andCategory:Fictional illeists | People and fictional characters who are known forreferring to themselves in the third person. |
| Category:Ironic and humorous awards | Awarded for all the wrong reasons. |
| Category:Lists of things considered unusual | This very article isn't the only unusualWikipedia article. |
| Ø (Disambiguation) Ø (disambiguation) | Two very different pages with virtually identical titles. |
| Disambiguation (disambiguation) | Not to be confused with a disambiguation page. |
| Wikipedia:Disambiguation (disambiguation) | Not to be confused with the above page. |
| Talk:Talk | Four talk pages with weird titles. |
| Talk:Talk Talk | |
| Talk:Talk Talk Talk | |
| Talk:Talk Talk (Talk Talk song) | |
| User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder | A joke article which became the Main Page's featured article for one minute on April Fools' Day 2005. |
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| Wikipedia:CaPiTaLiZaTiOn MuCh? | A hUmOrOuS wIkIpEdIa EsSaY oN hOw (NoT) tO cApItAlIzE pRoPeRlY. |
| Category:Wikipedia humor | There are too many pages in this category to all list here, this page lists a few highlights. |
| Wikipedia:Discussions for discussion | Great venue for grating big discussions. |
| Wikipedia:Getting to Philosophy | All links lead to Philosophy. |
| Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan | Wikipedia's very own anime mascot. (SeeMoe anthropomorphism above) |
| Wikipedia:Why isBFDI not on Wikipedia? | An entire essay dedicated to explaining how one particular topic fails to meet Wikipedia'snotability criteria, why its title wasblacklisted and why even drafts have beensalted. |
| Wikipedia:Articles in many other languages but not on English Wikipedia | Even despitethis Wikipedia that you're currently on having the most Wikipedia articles, there are still numerous articles that aren't on the English Wikipedia. |
| Wikipedia:Before they were notable | Celebrities (and products) having their articles deleted years ago. |
| Wikipedia:Deleted articles with freaky titles | Wikipedia articles that have existed and, judging by the title and contents, probably shouldn't have existed. |
| Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars | Way, way, WAY funnier thanList of edit wars on Wikipedia. |
| Wikipedia:List of really, really, really stupid article ideas that you really, really, really should not create | The title says it all, really. |
| Wikipedia:Unusual articles | The page you're currently reading. |
| Wikipedia:Unusual place names | As you can tell from the title, places with unusual names. |
Wikipedia:Featured pictures contains some unusual images.
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