Napoleon tried to cheat at chess three times. The guy hiding inside the chess robot flipped the board.

A bear was drafted into the polish army, made corporal, and picked up a coffee habit.

8 million people watched. Hundreds called in for growing tips. The BBC stayed in character.

Sports illustrated made up a pitcher. The Mets gave him a locker.

Alt captions: Lost his head in 1945. Still out here headlining festivals.The town took one look at a headless chicken and said: party games.

It rained meat in Kentucky in 1876. science has narrowed it down to vultures.

A journalist invented the history of the bathtub as a joke in 1917. it ended up in reference books.

she convinced the king's surgeon she was giving birth to rabbits. meanwhile her husband had spent the whole month buying rabbits.

A newspaper reported unicorns, tiny zebras and bat people living on the moon. then the telescope conveniently burned down. they never retracted it.

The Australian army brought machine guns to fight a flock of birds. the birds won.

The man who created sherlock holmes got outsmarted by a 9 year old, a 16 year old, and some hatpins.

The crew abandoned this ship in 1931. nobody told the ship. it kept showing up for 38 years.

A volcano was heard 3,000 miles away. sailors 40 miles out had their eardrums burst. the shockwave circled the planet three and a half times.

Critics noticed chisel marks on his fossils. he agreed. he just assumed god was holding the chisel.

Factory tells women to lick radioactive paint off their brushes. mabel williams, who lived to 104, simply did not.

A 25 foot wave of molasses tore through boston at 35 mph and killed 21 people. then the neighborhood smelled like it for decades.

Scientists spend years on research, get handed a prize by actual nobel laureates, and walk away with four cents. last year they didn't even get the four cents. they got a wet wipe.

Barnum had an expert check his mermaid. the expert said absolutely not. barnum put it on display anyway. it was half a monkey.

Strasbourg, 1518: hundreds of people can't stop dancing. doctors: have you tried dancing more. it backfired.