Cool Wikipedia pages

• Zeuxis (painter)
• "Death by laughter", and more old Greek artsy banter
• Ice Trade
• There used to be a large market ($660m in 2010 terms) for ice (from the artic!) pre good ice machines!
• Angus Wallace
• In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware!
• Pain in Babies
• "As recently as 1999, it was widely believed by medical professionals that babies could not feel pain..."
• Dublin Whiskey Fire
• 0 fire related deaths; 13 alcohol poisoning deaths from drinking the potent whiskey flowing through the streets.
• Destruction Under the Mongol Empire
• Ghengis Khan killed about 10% of the world's population, on par with the Black Death (WW2 killed about 3%)!
• List of Popes who died violently
• Of the first 31 popes, 28 were killed...!
• Dancing Mania
• Dancing Plague of 1518; also see the Tanganyika laughter epidemic
• Barber Surgeons
• Not just a barber, not just a surgeon, but a barber-surgeon.
• 1994 British Army Lynx Shootdown
• "Meanwhile, an IRA unit had mounted a Mark 15 mortar on a tractor, concealed behind bales of hay."
• List of Unusual Deaths
• Antonio López de Santa Anna
• Also see That Time Santa Anna Held a Funeral for His Amputated Leg
• Spaghetti-tree hoax
• the BBC told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best"
• Self-surgery
• High levels of badassery
• Contraception in Ireland
• Contraception could not be purchased without prescription by unmarried couples till 1985!
• Ohio does 10 cent beer night
• Ohio does balloonfest
• Dishwasher salmon
• "A dish any fool can prepare"
• Cocaine Bear
• Cocaine bear the movie is loosely based on a real story!
• Herb Kelleher
• The CEO of Southwest Airlines... ctrl + F "arm-wrestling"!
• Dyngus Day
• A Catholic celebration in Central + Eastern European "where the men wander around the town in colourful handmade costumes in search of a woman to soak"
• Acoustic Kitty
• 1960's CIA moonshot project to produce undercover cat spies
• Wojtek (The Soldier Bear)
• A Syrian brown bear adopted by the Polish Army, and eventually "[promoted] to the rank of Corporal"
• The Most Dangerous Writing App
• A web app which combats writers block by "deleting all progress if the user stops typing for five seconds"
• Demoscene
• 1904 Olympics Men's Marathon
• Yikes...
• Linguistic Relativity (Samir-Whorf hypothesis)
• Nobel Disease
• Surprising things believed by extraordinary scientists
• Light Pillar
• Naturally occuring beams of light via suspended ice particles reflecting light!
• Rhythm 0
• Infamous performance art work which brought out the worst in human nature when power and vulnerability is involved.
• ANT Catalog
• Real life James Bond gadgets via the pre-Snowden US goverment surveillance teams./
• Pierre Brassau
• Prank where a chimp's art was exhibited as those of an avant-garde artist, impresesing many _"art critics"_ were impressed./
• Great Stalacpipe Organ
• A giant organ built in a cave in Virginia, USA, which uses stalactites to produce sound. It covers 3.5km of the cave - making it the world's largest instrument!
• The Mother of All Demos
• Icelandic Phallological Museum
• Black Mountain College
• Perhaps the most successful (experimental) art college to exist... Cy Twombly, the De Koonings, John Cage and more came through it.