Wikipedia:Unusual articles

Please note
Articles of things considered unusual may be accepted in Wikipedia if they otherwise fulfill the criteria 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 (see Category:Lists of things considered unusual) should have an external reference for each entry that specifically classifies it as unusual, not to make it a point of view (POV) fork of original research. Still, all such lists have a risk of being deleted because of lack of neutral definition of what really is "unusual".

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This page is for Wikipedians to list articles that seem a little unusual. These articles are valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are a bit odd, whimsical, or something you would not expect to find in Encyclopædia Britannica. We should take special care to meet the highest standards of an encyclopedia with these articles lest they make Wikipedia appear idiosyncratic. If you wish to add articles to this list, a broad consensus amongst contributors has identified two main guidelines. If the article in question meets one or both of these categories then it could possibly be deemed unusual:

The article is something you would not expect to find in a standard encyclopedia.
The article contains some form of juxtaposition that most people would find unusual, such as "killer cockroach", "Henry VIII in space", "edible computers"–and so on.

This is a narrow definition. Some articles may still be considered unusual even if they do not fit these guidelines.

For unusual contributions that are not so valuable, see Wikipedia:Silly Things.

A star () indicates a featured article.

Places

File:Iceland -- 2008-08-08 13-39-41.jpg

Make sure you're covered.

A chandelier, decorating the Sedlec Ossuary, made from human bones.

Aerican Empire	A micronation with bizarre land claims, such as a mysterious cow pasture and the entire northern hemisphere of Pluto.
Argleton	A non-existent town in Lancashire, England, that appeared on Google Maps.
Baarle-Hertog	A municipality of Belgium, consisting in part of twenty-three exclaves within the Netherlands, some of which in turn contain Netherlands exclaves. (Some houses and shops are in both Belgium and the Netherlands.)
Baarle-Nassau	A municipality of the Netherlands, containing small exclaves of Belgium, which in turn contain even smaller exclaves of the Netherlands. (The borders mean that there are houses and companies which are in both Belgium and the Netherlands.)
Badlands Guardian	A natural topographic feature in Canada which, when viewed from above, looks remarkably like a human wearing a Native American headdress and earphones.
Baldwin Street, Dunedin	A short suburban road in Dunedin, New Zealand, reputedly the world's steepest street.
Barcelona Supercomputing Center	A supercomputer in a medieval chapel.
Beatosu and Goblu, Ohio	Two non-existent Ohio towns that appeared on Michigan's official highway map as a reference to the University of Michigan and their rivals, Ohio State University.
Bielefeld Conspiracy	The Bielefeld-Verschwörung tries to hide the horrible truth about a city in Westphalia, Germany that doesn't exist... well, maybe.
Bir Tawil	One of the few places on Earth not claimed by any country.
Bubbly Creek	The branch of the Chicago River that is so contaminated with blood from the Stock Yards that it bubbles to this day.
Butt Hole Road	The former name of a short, four-house street in Conisbrough, England whose name became so popular that it turned itself into a tourist attraction.
Camp Bonifas	The bunkers on this golf course feature machine guns and land mines.
Cardrona Bra Fence	An eccentric tourist attraction in New Zealand.
Carpatho-Ukraine	Possibly the shortest-lived state in history; it was independent for only 24 hours.
Centralia, Pennsylvania	A town that's been on fire since 1962.
Colletto Fava	A 5,000-foot hill with a 200-foot stuffed pink bunny on top.
The Compound	A tract of land in Palm Bay, Florida for which a housing development was proposed. After the developer went bankrupt, it was used for flying model planes, paintballing and cocaine drops from Miami and Cuba.
Coober Pedy, South Australia	A mining town where most of the residents live underground
Dixie Square Mall	An shopping mall that has now been abandoned for over twice as long as it was in business. It is a popular target for urban explorers and was featured in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.
Ebenezer Place, Wick	The world's shortest street.
Extraterrestrial real estate	Want to buy a housing plot on the Moon?
Fallen Monument Park	A Russian park best known for its toppled statues.
Ferdinand Cheval	An uneducated postman, who, for thirty-three years, collected stones while making his rounds and used them to build a surreal Palais Idéal ("Ideal Palace") of astonishing proportions and intricate detail.
Ferdinandea	An island that is constantly mistaken for a submarine.
Fictional island nations	These ones have not been mistaken for submarines.
Florence Y'all Water Tower	A Northern Kentucky town's unique "welcome" sign.
Folly	Buildings prized for their uselessness.
Forest swastika	A gigantic swastika made of larch trees that went unnoticed for nearly sixty years.
Free Stamp	A really big stamp in Cleveland, Ohio.
Fucking, Austria	A small Austrian village whose traffic signs are frequently stolen.
Gate Tower Building	A skyscraper in Japan that has a highway passing through its fifth, sixth and seventh floors.
Gravity hill	A hill that gives the illusion of objects rolling uphill.
Helengrad	A right-wing nickname for Wellington, New Zealand, derived from former Prime Minister Helen Clark's apparent steel grip on her cabinet.
Hell	A Norwegian village with a signboard on the railway station: Hell Gods Expedition
Cross Cafe	A Hitler-themed Indian restaurant, formerly known as "Hitlers' Cross" [sic].
Icelandic Phallological Museum	A museum in Iceland solely devoted to the collection of penis specimens and penis-related art.
Republic of Indian Stream	An area of land in northern New Hampshire, USA, that was an independent country from 1832 to 1835.
Island of California	The third largest U.S. State was formerly an island – on paper.
JASON reactor	The only nuclear reactor in a 17th century building.
Jerimoth Hill	The highest natural point in Rhode Island. For years, one of the toughest highpoints in the U.S. to scale, not because of its (812-foot) height, but because of an angry old man who lived nearby.
Jewish Autonomous Oblast	Far away in the depth of Eastern Siberia there's a place with street names in Yiddish, even though 95% of its population is not Jewish.
Kowloon Walled City	A former Chinese enclave in Hong Kong, known for its extremely high population density, food courts which served dog meat, and claustrophobic dwellings.
List of places with fewer than ten residents	That guy in Hibberts Gore, Maine must be getting lonely. He should go visit that girl in Monowi, Nebraska.
List of pyramid mausoleums in North America	Arizona Governor George Hunt will heretofore be addressed as "Pharaoh George I"..
Lost counties, cities, and towns of Virginia	All the places that are no longer found in Virginia, USA – and a few that never were – including Walton's Mountain and Illinois County (currently the home of Chicago, Illinois).
Love Land (Korea)	An erotic-themed sculpture park on Jeju island in South Korea.
Mary Ellis grave	A grave that found itself in the middle of a movie theater parking lot.
Magic Roundabout	Only in the United Kingdom would you find a large roundabout with five mini-roundabouts. (Not to be confused with the "Magic Roundabout"s in Colchester, Hemel Hempstead or High Wycombe – or, for that matter, this "Magic Roundabout".)
Märket	A lighthouse originally built in the wrong country due to inexact maps is reason behind the very peculiar border between Sweden and Finland on the island of Märket.
Michigan left	Directions are more complicated in Michigan.
Mill Ends Park	The smallest park in the world – 452 in² (0.3 m²) – located in Portland, Oregon.
Mojave phone booth	A public phone booth that stood for several years in the middle of a desert, miles away from any roads or other structures.
Republic of Molossia	A one-person micronation in Nevada, USA which takes the meaning of the phrase "a man's home is his castle" to new extremes.
Neutral Moresnet	A tiny European region (approx. 3.5 km²) that existed for a century as neutral territory between Germany and Belgium.
Original Spanish Kitchen	A Los Angeles restaurant that suddenly and unexpectedly closed in 1961, giving rise to an urban legend about the fate of its proprietors. The restaurant's contents – even as far as the place settings – remained untouched for decades.
Other World Kingdom	A micronation and BDSM resort, whose ultimate goal is "absolute matriarchy"– for all men to be enslaved by women.
Quay House	The "Smallest House in Great Britain", only 5.49 square meters in size.
Reality Checkpoint	A lamp-post with its own name.
Rio Rico, Texas	A city that was ceded by the United States to Mexico in 1970 as a result of an earlier diversion of the Rio Grande.
Rough and Ready, California	A currently populated, unincorporated mining town in the United States that seceded from the Union in 1850, forming the "Great Republic of Rough and Ready." Secession was rescinded less than three months later when its citizens noticed that they could not celebrate US independence.
Ryugyong Hotel	It would have once been the world's tallest hotel, except the 330 m (1100 ft) concrete slab lacked windows, fittings, or fixtures for over 20 years.
Sam Kee Building	Known as the world's narrowest commercial building.
Principality of Sealand	A micronation located six miles (10 km) off the coast of Suffolk, England, whose population rarely exceeds ten.
San Serriffe	An nation conceived by a British newspaper made up of two islands (Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse), whose capital city is Bodoni, and which features two ports—Clarendon and Baskerville.
Sedlec Ossuary	A Christian chapel decorated by the bones of approximately 40,000 people.
Shingō, Aomori	Did you know that Jesus escaped the crucifixion and raised a family in Japan?
S.N.P.J., Pennsylvania	A municipality consisting solely of a Slovenian fraternity's recreation center and established in part to get around liquor laws. The official population is zero.
Spiral Island	A now-destroyed artificial island, made by thousands of floating empty plastic bottles.
Spite house	Various houses built entirely out of spite for their neighbors.
Spreuerhofstraße	The world's narrowest street.
Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein	Roughly speaking, a place where two buffaloes were killed with a single shot.
UFO-Memorial Ängelholm	A memorial to a reputed UFO landing in Sweden.
Wedge (border)	It's harder than you think to construct the state of Delaware with a ruler and compass.
Winchester Mystery House	A house believed to be haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles
World's littlest skyscraper	A four-story brick building constructed in 1920 in downtown Wichita Falls, Texas, that has only one room on each of its four floors; the result of a fraudulent investment scheme by a confidence man.

See also

Wikipedia:Unusual place names

Numbers and dates

"Beghilos", "Hello", "Boobless", etc–there are many words that can be spelled on a calculator.

−0	Zero has a negative flavor in the worlds of computing, experimental science and statistical mechanics.
0.999...	An infinitely long way to write 1.
Black days	Now you can enjoy soul-crushing blackness all week long. Thank Nietzsche it's Friday!
Calculator spelling	Don't remember this from school?
Chrismukkah	A fictional Christmas-Hanukkah hybrid, popularized by the television show The O.C.
Dagen H	September 3, 1967: the day that Sweden changed its traffic directionality.
Erdős–Bacon number	Combination of the degree of separation from actor Kevin Bacon and mathematician Paul Erdős.
Extravagant number	Don't take it shopping. Not very friendly with the frugal number either.
February 30	Not as completely fictional as you might think.
Festivus	December 23: Holiday celebrated by the Costanza family on the television show Seinfeld, since appropriated by many.
Graham's number	A number so large that the observable universe is not big enough to write it all down.
Happy number	Not just a cheery song on the radio.
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia	For beastly people bored of triskaidekaphobia.
Illegal prime	Does the government forbid knowledge of the existence of certain prime numbers?
Indiana Pi Bill	A notorious attempt to legislate the value of pi.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day	Shiver my timbers (a-harrr!) every September 19.
January 0	Thought the day before New Year's Day would be in the previous year? Think again.
Look-and-say sequence	Also known as the Cuckoo's Egg.
Manhattanhenge	Twice every year, the setting sun aligns with Manhattan's street grid.
Mathematical jokes	Mathematics can be funny?
Narcissistic number	The pluperfect digital invariant says "Count me in"!
Numbers station	[Six bars of The Lincolnshire Poacher play] "¡Atención! ¡Atención! One, four, seventeen, twenty-four..."
Phantom time hypothesis	A theory by Heribert Illig that the Early Middle Ages (614–911) never occurred. Therefore, we are in 1727 rather than 2024.
Pi Day	The day – March 14 – on which the constant π is celebrated.
Minkowski's question mark function	A function with an unusual notation and possessing unusual fractional properties.
Ruth Belville	She followed her parents in the business of selling people Greenwich Mean Time.
Square Root Day	Any date when the day and month are both the square root of the last two digits of the year (the next one being 4th April 2016).
Time Cube	Time is cubic, not linear. There are four simultaneous days in a single rotation of the Earth. "Singularity is a damnable lie" – and so on...
Towel Day	Don't forget to bring a towel, terrible or otherwise.
Undecimber	In Java, the thirteenth month of the year.
Vampire number	Integers with real bite; some even have multiple pairs of fangs.
Year 2038 problem	The computing problem that will arise due to the POSIX Time representation used in many computers.
Year 10,000 problem	The collective name for all potential software bugs that will emerge as the need to express years with five digits arises.
Year zero	Was there a year between 1 BC and AD 1?
Zeroth	An ordinal number popular in computing and related cultures.

Language

"Which këÿs för this heävy plästic müsïc?"

The Voynich manuscript is written in an undeciphered script.

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.
Arcaicam Esperantom	How do you make things look "old" in an artificial language? By inventing a new one!
Behind the sofa	Where young British children hid from menacing scenes in sci-fi TV, now recalled humorously and nostalgically by British adults.
Brainfuck	Not what you think it is–unless, maybe, you're a computer geek...
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.	A meaningful, grammatical construction that has inspired linguists to talk about buffalo buffaloing buffalo.
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 President George W. Bush.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously	A sentence contrived by Noam Chomsky to demonstrate that a sentence can be grammatical yet nonsensical.
Controversies about the word "niggardly"	How a simple word can cause so much controversy.
Cryptophasia	The secret language of identical twins, also called idioglossia.
Dord	A nonexistent English word, supposedly meaning "density", which was listed in the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary from 1935 to 1939.
The dozens	A usually good-natured African American ritual in which two competitors, usually male, exchange trash-talk until one has no comeback.
List of ethnic slurs	Ever wondered why they got so angry at you?
Engrish	Attempts by East Asian people – especially the Japanese – to construct English words and phrases.
ETAOIN SHRDLU	Cryptic echoes from the days of hot metal typesetting.
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 suggest conspiracy. A popular word among Discordians.
Ghoti	As good an argument as any for English spelling reform.
Hyphen War	A dash between communism and independence.
Inherently funny word	Some influential comedians have long regarded certain words in the English language as humorous because of their sound or resemblance to other words. Poodle, wankel, ...
Intentionally blank page	The self-refuting meta-reference that is "This page intentionally left blank".
James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher	Repetition gone wrong.
Latin profanity	Latin for the profane.
Leet	Th3 1@ngu/\&e 0f H@xx0rz.
List of English words containing Q not followed by U	A Scrabbler's dream article.
List of words that comprise a single sound	Uttering a single sound may sometimes suffice to express an entire idea.
Longest word in English	Floccinaucinihilipilification, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and other contenders.
Mamihlapinatapai	The Guiness World Record holder for the "most succinct word".
Martian language	Chinese language + Internet = new language.
Metal umlaut	Gïvë thë lögö för ÿöür hëävy mëtäl bänd ä töügh Gërmänïc fëël.
Mother insult	What is this article about? Your Mom!
Phaistos Disc	Ancient spirals of undeciphered hieroglyphs.
Placeholder name	You know, thingamajigs, doohickeys, whatchamacallits...
Pompatus	All Steve Miller's fault.
RAS syndrome	...which is itself an example of RAS.
Russenorsk	A Slavic-Scandinavian hybrid that lasted only 150 years.
Robert Shields	You think you are hooked on recording every detail of your life..?
Siamese twins in the English language	Conjoined words.
Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters "George"	An association formed to oppose the custom of addressing railway sleeping car porters as "George" regardless of their actual name.
Thinking about the immortality of the crab	A colorful Spanish idiom for daydreaming; try using this one if your teacher notices you becoming inattentive in class.
Toynbee tiles	Tiles found embedded in asphalt, usually sporting cryptic messages.
Unknown unknown	Things that we don't know we don't know.
Voynich manuscript	An undeciphered illustrated book written four hundred or so years ago, by an anonymous author using an unidentified alphabet.
Words without vowels	Nt s hrd t prnnce s y'd thnk!

Names

File:Eristalis gatesi.jpg

Bill Gates' flower fly.

Adolf Lu Hitler Marak	A politician in the Indian state of Meghalaya where people are commonly given names such as "Lenin R. Marak", "Stalin L. Nangmin", "Frankenstein W. Momin" and "Tony Curtis Lyngdoh". He claims to be "happy with [his] name, although I don't have any dictatorial tendencies".
Aptostichus stephencolberti	A trapdoor spider named after Stephen Colbert. Naturally, because he asked for it.
Anal language	13,000 people speak Anal. Mostly in India and Myanmar. Not to be confused with the Anus language, spoken in Indonesia.
Dick Assman	A Saskatchewan service station owner whose name garnered international attention in 1995.
Praise-God Barebone	Christened Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone; not to be confused with Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon.
Bill Gates' flower fly	A flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, named after Bill Gates.
Deportivo Wanka	An unfortunately-named Peruvian football team whose strips are remarkably popular in Britain.
Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitäten-hauptbetriebswerkbauunter-beamtengesellschaft	An officials' association in pre-war Vienna, Austria of a shipping company for transporting passengers and cargo on the Danube.
GoldenPalace.com Monkey	A new species of monkey that was officially named after the GoldenPalace.com internet casino.
Lazarus taxon	Leaping Lazarus! Somewhat like Monty Python's Dead Parrot, it's not really dead, it's just resting.
Jennifer 8. Lee	A New York Times reporter whose middle name is the number eight.
Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache	If you think that's a bad name, his brother was "Lyulph Ydwallo Odin Nestor Egbert Lyonel Toedmag Hugh Erchenwyne Saxon Esa Cromwell Orma Nevill Dysart Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache".
List of names for the Wild Turkey	Not included: "the Wild Turkey".
Seán Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus	An Irish politician who changes his name to emphasize political affiliations.
Mannanafnanefnd	A committee in Iceland that determines whether a name is suitable for integration into the Icelandic language. Apparently voted yes about themselves.
Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 3	Actually, it's a polypeptide.
Neville Neville	The father of Phil Neville and Gary Neville, English footballers.
Pikachurin	An extracellular matrix-like retinal protein named after Pikachu.
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville	A warning to us all about taking double-barrelled surnames too far...
Scrotum humanum	Nothing to do with trouser snakes, but lizards of an entirely different scale.
Setaceous Hebrew Character	A European moth with wing markings bearing a chance resemblance to a letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
Covered smut, False loose smut, and Loose smut	You may snicker now, but if you had any one of those, I guarantee you wouldn't be laughing much.
Sonic hedgehog	A protein in the vertebrate hedgehog family that was officially named after Sega's video game character Sonic the Hedgehog.
Strigiphilus garylarsoni	A biting louse named for cartoonist Gary Larson of Far Side fame.
Thursday October Christian	The son of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutiny on the Bounty.
Wallsend Metro station	All railroads lead to Rome. With "no smoking" signs, although tobacco was unknown to ancient Romans...
Wolfe+585, Senior	Longest name ever given.
Zombie taxon	Paleontology of the undead.
Zyzyxia lundellii and Zyzzyva	The last plant name and animal name in the dictionary, respectively.

Science

"To type, or not to type..."
No, just keep typing.

Don't blanch–you may need these little fellas one day.

There's no requirement that north faces upward.

Don't reach for that sick bag 'til you're back on the floor.

Accessory breast	Some people have more than two.
Album graecum	White dog dung, mixed with honey and used as a treatment for throat and skin problems.
Alien hand syndrome	An unusual neurological disorder, also known as "Dr. Strangelove syndrome", whereby one of the sufferer's hands seems to take a life of its own.
Anophthalmus hitleri	Rare blind beetle named after Adolf Hitler, poached by collectors of Hitler memorabilia.
Archaeoacoustics	Can ancient pottery be used to play back recorded voices from the distant past?
Autofellatio	Acts of oral self-stimulation.
Bananadine	Exactly how psychedelic are those dried banana peels?
Ota Benga	The tragic story of a Pygmy man from the Belgian Congo who was briefly exhibited in the Bronx Zoo.
Bloop	Does a mystery sound from the bottom of the sea indicate that Cthulhu may awake...?
Bristol Stool Scale	Taking a close look at a toilet bowl for the sake of science. The scale was inspired by eye charts.
Buttered cat paradox	If a cat always lands on its feet and toast always lands buttered-side-down, what if...?
Capgras delusion	When you're sure a friend or loved one is an impostor.
Cello scrotum	Don't worry, boys, it's a hoax.
Charles Bonnet syndrome	Millions of perfectly sane people are having freakish hallucinations - and just not admitting it.
Colors of noise	Including white, pink, purple, blue...
The Complexity of Songs	About a treatise on space complexity of songs by venerable computer scientist Donald Knuth.
Cosmic latte	The colour of the Universe: a slightly beige white.
Cotard delusion	Suffered by people, very much alive, who believe they're dead.
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.
Danger triangle of the face	This ominous-sounding term refers to the special nature of the blood supply to the human nose and surrounding area which makes it possible for retrograde infections from the nasal area to spread to the brain.
Death from laughter	Don't laugh–it's happened!
Demon core	This chunk of metal only killed twice!
Vladimir Demikhov	Eminent Soviet biologist and father of the canine head transplant.
Natasha Demkina	Russian girl who claims to have X-ray vision.
Dihydrogen monoxide	A commonly-used chemical that can be deadly to all forms of plant and animal life, contributing to global warming, erosion, acid rain, and countless other maladies.
Dimples of Venus	For fans of those dimples you don't find on a face.
Drake's Plate of Brass	A forgery-related practical joke that went horribly awry.
Eigengrau	The color seen by the eye in perfect darkness.
Elvis taxon	A taxon (species, genus, family etc.) that is believed to be extinct but is falsely claimed by someone to still exist.
Embryo space colonization	A proposal for colonizing space using embryos raised by robots.
Emerald cockroach wasp	A wasp that can ride a cockroach– and drive it, too.
Exploding head syndrome	Ever woken up after an hour or two of sleep thinking you've just heard a massive explosion?
Fart lighting	The act of igniting gases produced by human flatulence.
Fecal anthropology	The study of our ancestors' poop.
Female hysteria	A once-common diagnosis of a range of symptoms in women, cured through masturbation to orgasm.
Five-second rule	The belief that food dropped on the floor is safe to eat only as long as it's picked up within five seconds.
Flat Earth society	A British society that holds the belief that Earth is flat, not spherical.
Flying ice cube	They happen to live inside the computers of scientists trying to simulate molecules.
Flynn effect	The world is steadily getting smarter.
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.
Phineas Gage	A 19th-century construction worker who survived a three-foot-long tamping iron going through his skull. His resultant behavioral changes have made him an important figure in the development of neuroscience.
Gerbilling	An urban legend about a sexual practice purportedly observed by some male celebrities.
Gimli Glider	Due to an input error, a Boeing 767 plane runs out of fuel mid-flight and becomes a glider.
Guided rat	Implanted electrodes let researchers "steer the animal over an obstacle course, making it twist, turn and even jump on demand".
Gynecomastia	Also known as "man boobs".
David Hahn	A 17-year old, known as the Radioactive Boy Scout, who irradiated his back yard attempting to build a nuclear breeder reactor from spare parts.
Hamster zona-free ovum test	A test, sometimes called a hamster test, involving human semen, hamster eggs, and a petri dish.
Ann Elizabeth Hodges	The first human in recorded history to have been verifiably injured by a falling meteorite.
Homokaasu	"Gay gas"—mysterious chemical substance conspiracy theory.
The Hum	A phenomenon involving a persistent and invasive low-frequency noise of a humming character and unknown origin, not audible to all people, reported in various geographical locations.
Human penis size	Scientific data on average size, racial variations, surgical enlargement and urban legends.
Hypertrichosis	Also known as "Human Werewolf Syndrome".
Infinite monkey theorem	An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will produce all possible written texts.
ISO 3103	The ISO standard cup of tea.
Jenkem	Huffing the gas from fermented human feces for a hallucinating effect.
Klüver–Bucy syndrome	A behavioral disorder with some very odd symptoms, including "hypersexuality" and a desire to examine objects with the mouth. Named after two doctors who gave psychotropic drugs to lobotomized monkeys.
List of Ig Nobel Prize winners	Nobel Prize meets Weird Science. Result: Award-winning papers like "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts" and "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans".
List of chemical compounds with unusual names	Some a consequence of their constituents or origins, others simply the work of whimsical chemists.
List of hypothetical Solar System objects	The planets that could have been. You think Pluto had it rough? At least it got its fifteen minutes of astronomical fame.
List of snow events in Florida	Yes, snow is not unknown in the "Sunshine State".
List of unusual units of measurement	Fortnights and nibbles, super feet and Sagans.
Magic smoke	An alternative theory of integrated circuits: once the smoke is released they no longer work.
Mad Gasser of Mattoon	A figure said to have terrorized the town of Mattoon, Illinois in 1944.
Maggot therapy	The use of fly larvae in medical practice.
Male lactation	Given the right conditions, just about any male can do it. Go ahead and try!
Male pregnancy	Don't expect humans to do this, but seahorses can.
Maple syrup urine disease	Not quite as tasty as it sounds.
Lina Medina	A Peruvian girl who gave birth to a son when she was five years old, becoming the youngest human mother on record.
Mellified Man	A legendary medicinal substance from Arabia.
MK-ULTRA	When a late-night radio host claims to have been brainwashed by the CIA, you may want to think twice.
Möbius syndrome	A disease, most envied by poker players, that makes facial expressions impossible.
Mole Day	A day in celebration of Avogadro's number, 6.02×10²³.
Monty Hall problem	The counter-intuitive way to prevail at playing Let's Make a Deal.
Moon landing conspiracy theories	Fake photos, slow-motion cameras and secret studios. All directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Mucophagy	The consumption of mucus.
Mumbai "Sweet" Seawater Incident	Salty creek becomes sweet for one tide cycle.
Nacirema	An obscure New World tribe with some interesting practices.
Nanoputian	A series of organic molecules having a structure that looks human.
Navel lint	A study proves that most belly button fluff is blue and that women are less likely to have it.
New car smell	Ahh, that new car smell.
Nasal sebum	Yes, that stuff on the surface of your nose.
Nothing up my sleeve number	A number which is "above suspicion".
Chandre Oram	A man in India with a 13-inch tail.
Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis	A tooth in the eye (is worth two in the foot?).
Parasitic twin	A medical condition where one of two conjoined 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.
Passenger train toilets	Why passengers must be discouraged from flushing or using toilets while the train is at a station.
'Pataphysics	A parody of science that purports to study what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics.
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.
Penis panic	A colloquial term referring to a type of mass hysteria or panic where males grow fearful of removal or shrinking of the penis.
Persistent genital arousal disorder	Not as funny as it may sound.
Photic sneeze reflex	People who sneeze when suddenly exposed to bright light.
Pykrete	A bullet-resistant frozen-water compound.
Quantum suicide and immortality	An infinite number of parallel universes means that any one person will always live forever.
Raining animals	When it's literally raining cats and dogs.
Rapunzel syndrome	Chewing on your hair is one thing, but actually eating it can have some untoward results.
Raven paradox	First, you'll grant that all ravens are black, yes...?
Red rain in Kerala	Did blood rain from the sky?
Reversed map	A reversed map of the world, against conventional projections which have north at the top.
S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897	An ill-fated attempt to reach the North Pole.
Schmidt Sting Pain Index	Created by an entomologist, after having been stung by almost everything, to compare the overall pain of insect stings on a four-point scale.
School bus yellow	A color especially formulated for use on U.S. school buses.
Sex in space	And when you've exhausted the list, here's something new to try!
Sleep sex	A form of parasomnia (similar to sleepwalking) that causes people to engage in sexual acts while they are asleep.
Smoot	A strange unit of distance used to measure the Harvard Bridge.
Stendhal syndrome	A psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art.
Sokal affair	Physicist Alan Sokal demonstrates that at least some postmodernists can't see an emperor with no clothes.
Sound of fingernails scraping chalkboard	Urrrgggh!
Roy Sullivan	An unlucky park ranger who got hit by lightning seven times. And survived them all.
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.
Thagomizer	A feature of Stegosaurus anatomy named after a Far Side comic strip.
Thiotimoline	A fictional chemical which dissolves before it comes into contact with water.
Thumb twiddling	Maybe this is unusual to you.
Tip of the tongue	A memory-related phenomenon familiar to us all.
Toilet-related injury	Not all injuries and deaths linked to toilets are urban legends.
Toilet paper orientation	On the pros and cons of letting toilet paper hang over or under the roll.
Tomacco	A made-up word courtesy of The Simpsons that resulted in a real-life application.
Mary Toft	An English woman who hoaxed doctors into believing that she had given birth to rabbits.
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.
Trepanation	A form of surgery where a hole is drilled or scraped into the skull. It was thought that such a procedure could cure problems like epilepsy or allow a person to enter into a higher state of consciousness.
Trimethylaminuria	Do you smell something fishy? It may be you!
Triskaidekaphobia	Fear of the number 13.
The Truman Show delusion	Those afflicted feel they are being watched all the time by a television audience, like Jim Carrey in the 1998 movie The Truman Show.
Ulam spiral	A bored mathematician discovers an unusual numerical pattern while doodling.
Uncanny valley	How to measure your emotional response to androids.
Uncombable hair syndrome	Not just a bad hair day.
Unobtainium	A term used to describe any material with properties that are unlikely or impossible for any real material to possess.
Vomit Comet	Lack of gravity is not good for the stomach.
Will Rogers phenomenon	Also known as the Will Rogers paradox; the apparent paradox obtained when moving an element from one set to another set that raises the average values of both sets.
Wrap rage	Ever been driven mad by packaging that just won't open?

Inventions and objects

Toilets in Japan have some special features.

Made by ancient intelligent life? A mysterious natural phenomenon?

Cower, you leeches, in the presence of the Tempest Prognosticator!

Aglet	The largely unacknowledged invention which revolutionised shoelaces.
Ampelmännchen	The East German "traffic-light little-man" ("Ampel männchen").
Brannock Device	The foot-measuring device found in shoe stores everywhere.
British Rail flying saucer	Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the 10:13 to Venus.
Canard Digérateur	Or "Digesting Duck", an automaton built to simulate a duck eating, digesting, and excreting.
Cat organ	A keyboard instrument in which the keys cause cats to miaow.
Centennial Light	A hundred-year-old light bulb that has been burning nonstop for 30 years.
Chicken gun	Valuable for the mitigation of damage from bird strikes. The chicken carcass must be thawed first, though.
Digital sundial	Unlike an analog sundial, a clock that indicates the current time with numerals formed by the sunlight striking it.
Dreamachine	A device made with a light bulb and a record turntable that reportedly induces lucid dreaming. (And you thought the makers of Die Another Day made it up. There's still no news about invisible Aston Martin V12 Vanquishes.)
Dymaxion car	A 1933 concept 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.
Electronic voice phenomenon	Alleged spiritual voices heard in white noise and radio interference.
Fictional elements, isotopes and atomic particles	Not actual periodic elements. Many end in '-ite'. Some of the elements may indeed be minerals.
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.
Hollowed-out book	Why books are popular in prisons.
Human mail	Why buy an expensive ticket when you can go by mail?
Interactive Urinal Communicator	A talking urinal made for advertising purposes.
Japanese toilet	The most advanced toilets in the world with computers, nozzles and flashing lights.
Jesus nut	Not someone crazy about Jesus, but the bolt on the top of a helicopter that connects it to the rotor blades.
Klerksdorp sphere	Spheres with three parallel groves dated to be three billion years old... Evidence of ancient intelligent life? An unusual natural phenomenon? Who knows...
Knork	In contrast to the spork (see below), here's a knife/fork combo.
Koteka	An unusual traditional garment of western New Guinea, also known as the "penis gourd".
Hedy Lamarr	Film actress co-invents communication system later used in cell phones, Wi-Fi and other forms of wireless technologies.
List of inventors killed by their own inventions	Perilous parachutes, lethal lighthouses and murderous motorcycles!
Lloyds Bank turd	Possibly the largest example of fossilised human feces ever found, discovered under the future site of a Lloyds Bank in England.
Loose wheel nut indicator	Yes, those little yellow tags you see on truck wheels really do have a purpose.
Lunarcrete	Perfect for building your own cut-price moon base.
The Mississauga Blob	A flaming object that fell from the heavens onto a back-yard picnic table in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada in 1979. The mystery of its true nature drew worldwide attention and speculation. Turns out it was a frisbee.
Mosquito laser	A bug zapper with a difference.
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.
Oliver Cromwell's head	This English political leader's head has an interesting journey after its owner is posthumously executed.
One red paperclip	A man's small piece of metal turns out to be worth more than expected.
Paris Syndrome	Particularly common amongst Japanese tourists and not to be confused with Jerusalem Syndrome or Stockholm Syndrome.
Pasilalinic-sympathetic compass	A telegraph system using telepathic snails.
Pigeons in aerial photography	Pigeons were used by the Germans for aerial surveillance in World War I, and rumoured to be so used in World War II. Not to forget the CIA's own pigeon camera.
Pointy hat	A distinctive feature of a wide range of people during history.
Project Cybersyn	Chilean robo-socialism control chamber invented by a Brit with a gigantic beard.
Rasputin's penis	Was Rasputin's legendary prowess due to a wart?
Rocket mail	The delivery of mail by rocket or missile, attempted by various organisations in many different countries, with varying levels of success.
Royal Mail rubber band	One billion are used every year and often seen littering the streets of UK cities.
RP FLIP	A manned ship designed to be capsized at a 90° angle for weeks on end.
Russian floating nuclear power station	Self-contained, low-capacity, floating nuclear power plants.
Shipping container architecture	The concept and art of using intermodal containers to build stuff.
South Pointing Chariot	An ancient Chinese mechanical compass which took a millennium to reproduce.
Space advertising	Plans to launch giant billboards into space.
Spork	A cross between a spoon and a fork. Not to be confused with a knork.
Stainless steel soap	Metallic soap that removes odours from the hands.
Tempest Prognosticator	Meteorology by frightened annelid.
Tin foil hat	Headgear that allegedly prevents a person from having their minds read or controlled.
Toilet roll holder	A surprisingly complex device for holding a roll of toilet paper.
Whizzinator	A fake penis used to beat drug tests (complete with dried urine, heater, syringe). Comes in white, tan, latino, brown, and black.
Xianxingzhe	A Chinese robot, according to the Japanese, that will save its country from corporate capitalism with its crotch cannon.
Zanbatō	An enormous Japanese sword that does not exist.

Computers, the Internet and games

File:BriansBrain oscillator.gif

An oscillator in Brian's Brain.

File:Guru nanak.jpg

Let us introduce you to an entirely different kind of guru meditation.

All your base are belong to us	A phrase that originated in the 1989 video game, Zero Wing and sparked an Internet phenomenon in 2001 and 2002.
AOL disk collecting	Collecting software disks supplied by AOL, infamous for its excessive distribution.
Atari video game burial	Are your video games not selling? Why not do what Atari did — bury them in a New Mexican landfill?
Blinkenlights	DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN!
Boobquake	Female users of social networking websites agree to determine whether their scandalous clothing can cause earthquakes.
The Book of Mozilla	A well-known computer Easter egg found in the Netscape and Mozilla series of browsers.
Boss key	A special key or key combination used in computer games to quickly hide the game from superiors or coworkers.
Brian's Brain	He is so smart, he has a cellular automaton.
Bush hid the facts	Revelations of a vast right-wing conspiracy, or just a glitch?
Carstuckgirls.com	An erotic(?) website devoted to women trying to free their cars from various obstacles.
Communist Mutants from Space	A Cold War Space Invaders clone in which you do battle with the Mother Creature, driven mad by radioactive vodka.
The computers take over	A science fiction scenario in which a supercomputer becomes intelligent and views humans as a threat to its safety. The computer will then try to wipe out the human race, or at least take control of it. Examples include The Terminator and The Matrix.
Crazy Frog	How one Swede's moped impression went on to earn millions as a ringtone and outsell Coldplay's Speed Of Sound four to one in Britain.
The Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science	A 1990 academic paper which argues that computer programming should be understood as a branch of mathematics, and that the formal provability of a program is a major criterion for correctness.
Dogcow	A glyph from an old Apple font representing a creature that makes the noise "Moof!".
Don't Buy This	A rare example of truth in advertising.
elgooG	A mirror image version of Google: all letters are displayed in reverse order.
Esoteric programming language	Refers to programming 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.
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.
FWAKs	Fake FAQs for video games.
Giant Enemy Crab	An Internet meme resulting from Sony's E3 2006 press conference.
Gibs	The little bits of gore you get when someone or something in a video game explodes.
Guy Goma	A bloke who was at the BBC for a job interview is instead interviewed on its news channel about the Apple Corps v. Apple Computer lawsuit.
Great Giana Sisters	A game that was withdrawn from the shelves virtually as soon as it went on them.
Guru Meditation error	If you thought the blue screen of death was bad, this computer error would hamper your quest to reach Nirvana.
The Hampster Dance	A web page featuring dancing hamsters set to music. The music (itself a sample) was sampled in a song, and made No.4 in the United Kingdom in 1999.
Hong Kong 97	A video game where the dead Deng Xiaoping is a weapon of mass destruction.
How does one patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?	An Internet meme in the Russian internet culture. Various heads of state at Internet press conferences were asked this question–here are their answers.
I Am Rich	You must be if you could afford this US$999.99 iPhone application that did, well, not very much of anything.
iFart Mobile	Setting the precedent for useless iPhone apps everywhere.
Internet phenomenon	Its name is Legion, for it is many.
IP over Avian Carriers	An internet protocol for sending data packets using homing pigeons.
JFK: Reloaded	A video game released in 2004 where the player gets to assassinate president John F. Kennedy.
Lenna	How an image of a nude Playboy model became the industry-standard digital image compression test subject.
lp0 on fire	Want to panic a Unix user? Display an error that their printer is on fire.
MONIAC Computer	A water-based analogue computer used to model the United Kingdom economy, bringing a new meaning to the term liquidity.
Numa Numa	Or how a fat kid dancing to the O-Zone song Dragostea din tei in front of his computer became very popular.
Office Assistant	Microsoft's anthropomorphic paperclip that pops up in Word 97.
O RLY?	The sarcastic owl image that is becoming increasingly ubiquitous on the Net.
OS-tan	A small Internet phenomenon where certain types of software (including various Microsoft and Linux operating systems) are depicted as young anime women.
Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors	A compendium of computer games all created to allow the owner to scam his or her friends. Includes "Desert Bus": a painstakingly realistic 8 hour bus journey from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas through a featureless desert in real time.
Reality distortion field	Surely an obscure quantum-physics phenomenon? Nope!
Self-balancing unicycle	The ongoing academic effort to teach robots to ride unicycles.
Mark V Shaney	A fake Usenet user whose computer-generated postings were created using Markov chain techniques.
Shock site	Don't look! (No, really.)
John Titor	The name of a purported time traveller from the year 2036. He posted on several time travel-related Internet bulletin boards during 2000/2001.
Tourist guy	The picture of a Hungarian man and how it relates to 9/11.
Trojan room coffee pot	The fascinating target of the world's first webcam: a coffee machine at the computer science department of Cambridge University.
Typographical personification	Have you ever recevied a visit frm teh Typo Fairy?
Usenet celebrity	A list of famous, and infamous, Internet celebrities on Usenet newsgroups.
Utah teapot	A 3D model which has become a standard reference object (and something of an in-joke) in the computer graphics community.
Video games notable for negative reception	And we were so sure Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis would be a hit!
Wingdings	A Microsoft Windows font that has inspired multiple conspiracy theories.

Popular culture, entertainment and the arts

File:Animegao.altonthompson.jpg

It's cosplay time!

File:Ghost ride the whip.jpg

Ghost riding the whip.

C'est Le Pétomane–who "performed" for royalty.

The Aristocrats	A joke considered to be both "the world's funniest" and "the world's worst". Also a 2005 documentary of the same name.
Bigipedia	A unique experiment in "broadwebcasting", Bigipedia is the website on your radio. In association with Chianto—"Officially recognised by the EU as a wine-type product".
Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them!	T-shirt slogan aimed towards young women, rocks aimed towards young men.
George P. Burdell	A fictitious student officially enrolled at Georgia Tech in 1927, and who has been continuously enrolled at the school ever since.
The Bus Uncle	A Hong Kong resident gets into an uncomfortably tense argument with a fellow passenger—all caught on video.
Cartoon physics	In animation, humour takes precedence over the ordinary laws of physics.
Conan the Librarian	A perennial parody of Conan the Barbarian that has appeared in film, television, comics, and fan fiction.
Cosplay	A Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, and video games.
Croydon facelift	A hairstyle peculiar to parts of England.
Cultural depictions of Napoleon I of France	Fictional characters believing they are Napoleon are often used to suggest mental ill health.
Cuteness in Japanese culture	It's not just Hello Kitty and Pikachu.
Donkey punch	Allegedly a sex move involving punching one's partner in the back of the head during intercourse.
Drop bear	A fictitious Australian marsupial supposedly related to the koala.
Evil clown	A recent development in American popular culture in which the playful trope of the clown is rendered as disturbing through the use of dark humor and horror elements.
Evil Overlord List	How to avoid the movie clichés.
Flash mob	Wherein a group of people quickly meet up, engage in a random action such as a pillow fight, then disappear just as quickly.
Fuck for Forest	Do your bit to save the rainforest—have an orgy!
The Game	A mind game in which players try not to think about The Game. That means, by reading this, you and I just lost The Game.
Garden Gnome Liberation Front	Vive la révolution des gnomes!
Get a life	No, how about you get a life?
Ghost ride	One of the latest trends to be popularized by hyphy culture.
Gurn	A Western term for creating odd appearances of the face.
Guyball	A game involving a topmiler; where you do not leave the parish; stickles can be random, orthodox or alternate; and you are encouraged to splice the Matterhorn.
Happy slapping	Hurting someone while taking a picture of them, usually with a camera phone.
Human rainbow	A huge gathering of colours.
Kancho	A Japanese children's game that simulates anal probing.
Kayfabe	In professional wrestling, the portrayal of events within the industry as real.
Love padlocks	A fence in the southern Hungarian town of Pécs where lovers clamp padlocks
Masturbate-a-thon	A charity fundraiser that involves self-pleasure.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri	An Iranian refugee who lived in Charles de Gaulle Airport from 1988 until 2006.
Meta-joke	A joke that refers to itself as the joke.
Metafiction	Fictional fiction.
Mile High Club	Soaring members.
Moe anthropomorphism	In this time and age even a washing machine can be the girl of your dreams.
Mooning the Cog	Bad weather isn't the only reason to avoid the summit of Mount Washington.
Mornington Crescent (game)	A deceptively tricky game of navigating the London Underground—don't be caught in knip!
Muffin top	A marketing mishap, many well-meaning young women, and vanity came together to form this demographic.
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.
Obay	A fictional mind-control drug that's at the center of a viral marketing campaign.
Pen spinning	An activity in which assorted tricks are used to manipulate a pen in aesthetically pleasing ways.
Le Pétomane	A French entertainer famous in Victorian times for being able to break wind at will. Practitioners of this... art are called flatulists.
Aron Ralston	One tough guy who, in order to escape from death, cut off his own arm with a dull knife after a boulder fell on it.
Real-life superhero	All you need is a cape and a dream.
Rickrolling	Careful: that link you're about to click on might take you to a video of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up.
Sardarji jokes	Popular jokes in India, based on stereotype of Sikhs.
Shoe tossing	The practice of throwing footwear, whether for humorous or political purposes.
Size queen	Slang term originally used in the gay community to refer to individuals with a preference for larger-than-average (male) genitalia, more recently applied to women with such a preference as well.
Toilet humour	Humor based upon bodily functions.
Treacle mining	The fictitious mining of treacle (molasses) in a raw form similar to coal.
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.
WAGs	Term mostly used by the British media since the 2006 World Cup to describe the wife/girlfriend of a football player (especially one who plays for England).
Larry Walters	Successfully piloted a lawn chair to 16,000 feet over Los Angeles.
War on Terror, the boardgame	A boardgame satire of the real "war 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.
The World Famous Bushman	A street entertainer in San Francisco who makes a living by pretending to be a bush.

Art and literature

The 2004 Yuletide Gävle goat. Keep your matches in your pocket, please.

"Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī... help!!

File:Lucyflowers.jpg

"Lucy in the Field with Flowers", with original frame–the first work in the Museum of Bad Art's collection.

Is it a car? Is it a fish?
No–it's Superlambanana!

112 Gripes about the French	A handbook produced to help American soldiers understand the French.
Afghanis-tan	Central Asian history has never been cuter. (Osama bin Laden makes an appearance as a turban-wearing stray cat.)
Anthropodermic bibliopegy	The practice of binding books in human skin.
Archie Meets the Punisher	The team-up you thought would never happen....
Arseface	A comic book character from none other than DC Comics.
Atlanta Nights	A group of science fiction authors get together and deliberately write an absolutely horrible novel in order to fool and embarrass a "vanity publisher".
Banksy	A graffiti artist who smuggles his works into world-class museums.
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo	Name of a Japanese manga (comic) whose subject matter is as surreal as its title.
The Book of Heroic Failures	A book which glorifies failure. Started off The Not 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 as Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, How to Avoid Huge Ships or Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts?
Bottle Rack	A modern art piece created by Dada artist Marcel Duchamp that was thrown out by his sister, who mistook it for trash.
La Bougie du Sapeur	A French newspaper published every February 29th.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest	A contest to find "the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels".
Chamber of Art and Curiosities	A cabinet of curiousities created by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria in the 16th century.
Clan McDuck	A fictional family in the style of a Scottish clan, from which a great number of Walt Disney Company's comic book characters held their origin.
Death poem	The urge to have famous last words, taken to its logical, carefully rewritten extreme.
Earring Magic Ken	How Barbie's boyfriend, in an attempt to look cooler, became a gay icon.
Henry Darger	Writer of a 15,000-page manuscript along with several thousand watercolor paintings and other drawings illustrating the story, who went to Mass several times daily.
Francis E. Dec, Esq.	Self-styled "your only hope for a future", a conspiracy theorist who mass-mailed to the medias outlandish tracts denouncing a "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God" mind-controlling mankind, he has become a cult figure "kook" for the involuntary humor or poetry of his rants.
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.
Early American editions of The Hobbit	Now collectors' items because of their printing differences.
English as She Is Spoke	A 19th-century Portuguese–English conversational guide and phrase book that is regarded as a classic of unintentional humour since it was apparently the product of translating a Portuguese–French phrase book by non-English-speaking Portuguese with the help of a French–English phrase book.
Evil laugh	"Mua-ha-haha-ha-haaa" and the like.
The Eye of Argon	An infamously bad heroic fantasy novella, written in 1970 by Jim Theis and circulated anonymously in science fiction fandom since then.
Fallen Astronaut	A small statuette which is the only piece of art on the moon.
The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women	A 1558 diatribe by John Knox against Mary, Queen of Scots and Mary Tudor.
Gadsby: Champion of Youth	A 50,110-word long book famous for not using the letter "e".
Gävle goat	A giant straw Yuletide goat that is the target of frequent arson attacks and vandalism.
Gorillas in comics	A curious abundance of gorillas in comic book plots during the Silver Age of Comics.
The Headington Shark	Oxford man has had a 25-foot (7.6 m) long sculpture of a shark embedded headfirst into the roof of his unassuming house since 1986.
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.
Jenny Everywhere	An open-source webcomic character.
Katrina refrigerator	Loot this! Free meal inside!
Knitta	NY gangsta graffiti knitters.
La Princesse	A 13-metre mechanical spider which stomped about Liverpool in 2008.
Le Rêve	A Picasso painting that purportedly would have sold for a record price had its owner, Steve Wynn, not accidentally poked a hole in it.
Largest photographs in the world	Includes information on print and digital photos that are reputedly the world's largest.
"Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den"	A poem written by a Chinese poet in Classical Chinese. It can be comprehended and understood by all who understand the language, even though it consists entirely of the word "shi" repeated 92 times in different tones.
List of books with the subtitle "Virtue Rewarded"	For some reason the "Virtue Punished" books never sell....
Lobby Lud	"You are ____ and I claim my five pounds".
Magical negro	A racist stock character who helps out white protagonists.
Marlovian theory	A theory which states that Christopher Marlowe's unnatural death was a hoax and that he continued to write and publish under the pseudonym "William Shakespeare".
McDonald's Sign (Pine Bluff, Arkansas)	One of the few single-arched McDonald's signs left.
William McGonagall	A writer widely held to be the worst poet in the English language.
Mexican Perforation	A French artistic movement that expresses itself in underground places.
Mr. Immortal	A Marvel Comics superhero with no special powers except immortality, who has been killed in ways including crushing, burning, self-impalement on giant novelty scissors, bear trap, cannon, chainsaw, piranhas, ferrets, spear, and python, and alcohol poisoning (three times). Prone to fits of rage upon returning to life.
My Balls	Terror. Madness. Villains. Evil plots. And, most of all ... balls. From Japan, naturally.
Museum of Bad Art	A Museum "dedicated to the collection, preservation, and exhibition of really awful artwork".
Naked Came the Stranger	Journalists prove a point when their intentionally awful sex novel becomes a bestseller.
Order of the Occult Hand	"It was as if an occult hand had edited this Wikipedia article."
On Bullshit	A very serious essay by Harry Frankfurt sketching a philosophical theory of, well, bullshit.
Philip M. Parker	Writer of “The 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.
Pink Lady	In 1966, a woman secretly painted a 60-foot tall portrait of a nude woman over a tunnel and sued when the county tried to take it down.
Sacred Cod of Massachusetts	There's also a "Holy Mackerel", Batman.
Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism	Mine is better than yours.
Saddam Hussein's novels	Crimes against literature?
Shakespearean authorship	Proven by circumstantial evidence, a great conspiracy which concealed the identity of the true author of "Shakespeare's" works, implying that all contemporary references to Shakespeare's authorship were fraudulent or mistaken. Can you guess who the secret author is?
Superlambanana	A statue in Liverpool that's half-lamb, half-banana.
Tentacle erotica	Human-cephalopod sexual relations, popular in hentai.
Tillie	An odd painting of a grinning face, that used to be on the Palace Amusements building in Asbury Park, New Jersey before it was demolished.
Le Train de Nulle Part	A French novel, 233 pages long, written without verbs.

Music

Peace rather than the barrel of a rifle.

File:Sinatra, Frank 03.jpg

If you don't do it My Way, I will kill you!

Animutation	The practice of taking lyrics of foreign songs, "mishearing" them into English, and producing a flash video to go along with it.
As Slow As Possible	A piece of music by John Cage to be performed until 2640.
The Boy Bands Have Won	Actually, this album's full title is The Boy Bands Have Won followed by a further 151 words. As of August 2009, it holds the record for the longest album title.
Rosemary Brown	A spiritualist who claimed that dead composers dictated new musical works to her.
Cigarettes and Valentines	An entire record by Green Day whose master tracks were stolen.
Curse of the ninth	The superstition that any composer of symphonies, from Beethoven onwards, will die soon after writing their own Ninth Symphony.
The Dalton Brothers	Not to be confused with the Dalton Gang, this fake country group that opened for U2 in the late 1980s was actually U2 themselves. (Similarly, "The Folksmen", featured in the film A Mighty Wind, is a fake country and folk group supporting Spinal Tap whose members are Spinal Tap themselves.)
Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night of the Soul	Due to a legal dispute, this album was released with a blank CD-R.
Dark Side of the Rainbow	What happens when you mix Pink Floyd and The Wizard of Oz?
Das erste Wiener Gemüseorchester	An Austrian orchestra whose musical instruments are made solely from vegetables.
Earworm	It's got a hook in you.
Electroencephalophone	A musical instrument controlled by brainwaves.
Escopetarra	The Colombian gun-guitar
Elvis sightings	There are many who still believe.
Joyce Hatto	A minor pianist who had many doctored recordings falsely attributed to her long after she stopped performing in public.
Helikopter-Streichquartett	A string quartet that must be played in four circling helicopters, the sound remixed, chopper sounds and all, for an audience on the ground.
Hitler Has Only Got One Ball	Was der Führer only half a man?
Industrial musical	A musical production performed for the employees of a business, intended to create a feeling of being part of a team, and/or to educate and motivate the management and salespeople to improve sales and profit.
Jandek	A prolific and pseudonymous singer/songwriter active since 1978 who only grants the occasional interview and has never provided any biographical information.
"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".
Florence Foster Jenkins	An American soprano famous for her singing ability or lack thereof.
Katzenklavier	The "Cat piano"; making music from howling cats.
Keepon	A music video starring a little yellow robot designed to work with autistic children.
Leck mich im Arsch	A canon, whose title translates as "Lick my ....", by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
List of songs topping polls for worst songs	We built this city on not being very good.
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.
The Lillywhite Sessions	Never officially released, and yet fans and critics can argue that it's the best "album" by the Dave Matthews Band.
Metal Machine Music	A 1974 album by Lou Reed that consists of 64 minutes of audio feedback, widely believed to have either been an elaborate joke, or an attempt by Reed to escape from a record label contract.
Manualism	The little-known art of playing music by squeezing air through the hands.
More cowbell	I got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell!
MP4	Rock music and politics does mix.
Musical saw	The least favourite instrument of Ronnie Wood, The Hollies and The Screaming Trees.
Musikalisches Würfelspiel	A system written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in which the musical piece is decided randomly by playing dice.
My Way killings	You can get killed for singing Frank Sinatra's signature tune in the Philippines.
P Funk mythology	An article about the whimsical universe surrounding the P Funk all stars.
Paul is dead	Was Paul 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 at Kmart, 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 be U2's 1997–98 tour in a nutshell.
Publius Enigma	A mystery wrapped in an enigma related to Pink Floyd, which has remained unsolved since it appeared on Usenet in 1994.
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...
William Shatner's musical career	His rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds regularly wins radio station competitions to find the "worst music of all time".
Thai Elephant Orchestra	An orchestra of elephants playing specially designed instruments.
Kazumi Totaka	A music composer who hides his own song in many video games.
Tromboon	An unusual instrument, with an even more unusual sound sample^ⓘ.
Ugly stick	An instrument in Newfoundland, an insult everywhere else.
Up to eleven	This article is one louder.
"Ventolin"	Single by Cornish electronic musician Richard D. James, otherwise known as Aphex Twin; a most abrasive piece of music.
You Suffer	At a full 1.316 seconds in length, the shortest song of all time.
The Zimmers	A rock band made up of elderly musicians. The lead singer is 90 years old.
Zombeatles	Paul is undead.

Television and film

Mull of Kintyre test. The rudest part of Scotland?

Alternative 3	An April Fools joke by an ITV science show leads many to believe that scientists were being kidnapped to prepare for the colonization of Mars.
Atuk	The only known, and most famous, cursed movie script... which, urban legend has it, was responsible for the deaths of several prominent and portly comedians and maybe a couple of their friends.
Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos	Never mind Turn-On—this never even made it to the end of its only episode.
Big Dumb Object	A mysterious object (usually of extraterrestrial origin) in a film that is there simply to cause a sense of wonder.
Blue Harvest	The best way to keep away the paparazzi away from your movie: give the movie a fake title, like this one used by George Lucas for Return of the Jedi.
The Canadian Conspiracy	A mockumentary released in 1985 that asserts that Canada is subverting the United States by taking over its media.
Conspiracy 58	A mockumentary that claimed that the 1958 World Cup was never actually held. Despite being revealed as a hoax at the end, people still believed it.
The Cure for Insomnia	A movie that runs for 85 hours.
The Day the Clown Cried	A notorious unreleased film about the Holocaust—hey, it's a comedy!
Empire (1964 film)	A film by Andy Warhol consisting entirely of eight hours of still footage of the Empire State Building.
The Fantastic Four (film)	Not the 2005 film, but one filmed in 1994 purely to secure the copyright on the characters.
First on the Moon	Proof that the Soviets got there, thirty years before Armstrong and Aldrin didn't.
Flemish Secession hoax	Our regular programming is now interrupted to declare independence from Belgium.
Goofy holler	Perhaps you've heard of it....
Greg Packer	A man on the street, no matter which street you're talking about.
Jumping the shark	Metaphor for the point at which one can speak of a TV show as having had its best days behind it.
K Foundation Burn a Million Quid	Why did the K Foundation burn a million pounds in cash?
Michael Larson	A man who won over $100,000 in an American quiz show because he was able to notice a pattern in the flashing lights on the "Big Board."
Kin-yan Lee	A Hong Kong actor repeatedly cast in Stephen Chow films as a nose-picking, bearded transvestite.
The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World	A movie that runs for 48 hours. Despite its title it surprisingly isn't the world longest, but the vote's still out on whether it's the most meaningless....
Manos: The Hands of Fate	A low-budget film created by a fertilizer salesman from Texas, which is largely considered to be the worst film of all time.
MacGuffin	It doesn't matter what it is, really, as long as it drives the plot of a movie along.
The Metric Marvels	Nothing says 1970s in the U.S. more than a spinoff of Schoolhouse Rock with superheroes who teach the metric system.
Mexican standoff	Suspenseful (and not Mexican in the slightest) movie situation frequently used in old spaghetti Westerns, but revived by directors such as Quentin Tarantino and John Woo, in which two or more characters have weapons aimed at each other.
Monkey Tennis	Hypothetically the worst television programme it is possible to make.
Mull of Kintyre test	When can a human penis be shown on British television?
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: In Shocking 2-D	As if that wasn't bad enough, it spawned a sequel.
Pulgasari	A Godzilla-esque film (also an allegory for unchecked capitalism) created by Kim Jong-il and a director whom he kidnapped.
The Puppy Channel	This cable television channel had a simple premise: nothing but puppies, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Roundhay Garden Scene	The first ever moving picture, which lasted for an epic two seconds.
Shaken, not stirred	Why 007 prefers his martini shaken.
Smell-O-Vision	A system designed to enhance films with odors. Used once for the 1960 film Scent of Mystery and never again.
Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome	A tragic condition suffered by some young characters on soap operas.
Spaghetti trees	Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.
SSSSSSS	Dirk Benedict and snakes. Long before the day of Samuel L. Jackson.
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man	Large marshmallow mascot seen in the film Ghostbusters.
Stinking badges	Something nobody needs. Possibly the most frequently quoted and misquoted line from a movie ever.
Taylor Mead's Ass	A film consisting entirely 70 minutes of Taylor Mead's buttocks.
Tomorrow's Pioneers	A Palestinian children's show produced by Hamas and co-hosted by various costumed characters, including one resembling Mickey Mouse. Most of said costumed characters are killed off in some violent manner
Turn-On	An ABC comedy series that was cancelled even before the first episode had finished.
Very special episode	A genre of television episodes with controversial life lessons interweaved into the storyline, popularized by Blossom.
Vrillon	A broadcast from another world, or someone's ingenious hoax? You decide.
Wank Week	A Channel 4 project for all those who think there aren't enough jerks on TV.
Tommy Westphall	How a child with autism, and Detective Munch, are responsible for more than 200 TV series.
Steve Wiebe	The star of a film about him setting the world's high score... for Donkey Kong.
Who's your Daddy?	To win $100,000 adoptees have to pick their father out of twenty five men.
Wilhelm scream	A stock sound effect first recorded in 1951 and used in dozens of films (including all six Star Wars films, two Lord of the Rings films and Kill Bill).

See also

Food, drink, and products

Aglet	Yes, there is a name for the plastic things at the end of your shoelaces.
Banana production in Iceland	More weird than Björk? Entirely possible.
Beer goggles	Does drinking a certain beverage make you attracted to people you otherwise wouldn't be?
Bird's nest soup	Asian delicacy.
British Rail sandwich	Definitely not an Asian delicacy.
Boneless Fish	A frozen fish scaled, gutted and deboned and then glued to its original shape using a food-grade enzyme without cooking.
Cannabis foods	Various foods containing cannabis.
Carmine	A common food dye manufactured from insects.
Casu marzu	Italian maggot cheese. Cheese designed to be eaten while it is infested with cheese fly larvae.
Chubby bunny	A common (but sometimes lethal!) game played with marshmallows.
Civet coffee	Not coffee made from civets, but rather from ordinary coffee beans the civet has, well, excreted.
Cola wars	A marketing battle between Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
Darkie Toothpaste	Racist toothpaste from Taiwan.
Deep fried Mars bar	A Scottish delicacy.
Deep-fried Twinkies	America's answer to the above.
Diet Coke and Mentos eruption	Mentos + Diet soda = geyser.
Durian	King of fruits.
Flies graveyard	A delicacy in the United Kingdom.
Fried spider	Exactly what it sounds like, and a regional delicacy in Cambodia.
Gay Fuel	An energy drink marketed towards the gay community.
Grapefruit juice effect	Be careful - that delicious food item could be dangerous to prescription-drug users.
Hamburger University	Where McDonald's employees learn their stuff.
Hitler bacon	Is it kosher?
Hotel toilet-paper folding	Ever wondered why it was so?
Hufu	The tofu product designed to look and taste like human flesh. For Vegetarian Cannibals
If-by-whiskey	A famous speech successfully both attacking and defending hooch.
Kangatarianism	The practice of excluding all meat from one's diet except kangaroo
Lesbian wine	Where Lesbians comes from.
Michel Lotito	Known as Monsieur Mangetout, because of his strange diet.
Milbenkäse	A type of German cheese containing live mites, which are eaten along with the cheese.
McDonald's urban legends	Is that worm meat in your Big Mac?
McWords	Words created in popular culture as a result of the influence of McDonald's Restaurants, e.g. McJob or McMansion.
Modern Toilet	A restaurant chain where you never have to get up to use the toilet.
Monkey brain	A Chinese delicacy that has been made famous through films.
OpenCola	The world's first open-source beverage.
Rhubarb Triangle	A recipe or a dangerous area to fly through?
Roadkill cuisine	Yes, Skunk a la Michelin sounds tasty to some people.
Sannakji	Small octopuses eaten alive with sesame oil.
Sealed crustless sandwich	A patented peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Snake wine	A type of Vietnamese wine that includes a whole venomous snake in the bottle.
Spoo	The most delicious foodstuff amongst all alien species of Babylon 5.
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."
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.
Tarrare	A French showman and soldier noted for his unusual eating habits. Among other things, he ate a meal intended for 15 people in a single sitting, ate live cats, snakes, lizards and puppies, and swallowed an eel whole without chewing.
Tastes like chicken	But baked, grilled, or fried?
Tim Tam Slam	An Australian method for drinking tea through Tim Tam biscuits.
Tomatina	A gigantic food fight with a ham-topped greased pole as the start.
Turducken	A de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, stuffed with a small de-boned chicken.
Sonya Thomas	What weighs 105 pounds and eats more hot dogs in 12 minutes than most people do all summer?
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."
Vegetarianism of Adolf Hitler	Hitler believed that a vegetarian diet could both alleviate his personal health problems and spiritually renew the Aryan race.
Who ate all the pies?	A chant sung by football fans in England and Scotland, aimed at supposedly overweight footballers, officials or opposing supporters.

Animals

Adwaita	Possibly the oldest creature of modern times, this 255-year-old tortoise was the former pet of Robert Clive of the British East India Company.
Animals in space	A definitive list on the use of animals in various space programs.
Apophallation	If your genitalia get too badly tangled, it may be a good idea to carry a spare.
Benson (fish)	A fish. A big fish. Called Benson.
Jack Black (rat catcher)	Queen Victoria's officially appointed rat-catcher and mole destroyer.
Bird strike	An often forgotten hazard in aviation.
Blast fishing	An illegal fishing technique that involves the use of dynamite.
Bobbit worm	"Armed with sharp teeth, it is known to attack with such speeds that its prey is sometimes sliced in half."
Bovine bingo	A different way to play bingo.
Bubbles (chimpanzee)	A chimpanzee who used human toilet facilities, moonwalked, and (allegedly) attempted suicide.
Bummer and Lazarus	Two stray dogs that roamed the streets of San Francisco, California, in the early 1860s and were exempted from local ordinances.
Candiru	A parasitic freshwater catfish that swims into the gill openings of other aquatic species - or human penises.
Cat Mandu	The late co-leader of a notable British political party.
Cattle mutilation	The alleged killing and then subsequent mutilation of cattle, sheep or horses by unknown perpetrators (possibly aliens).
Chicken hypnotism	Have you ever wanted to hypnotize a chicken? If not, why not?
Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office	The cat of the official residence to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Chicken sexer	A person who has been specially trained to determine the sex of chicken hatchlings.
Christmas tree worm	A worm that looks like a Christmas tree.
Cow magnet	A plastic-coated magnet fed to cows to prevent gut damage by ingested bits of metal.
Cow tipping	The act of pushing over sleeping cows.
Depopulation of cockroaches in the ex-USSR countries	A great ecological problem indeed.
Deer penis	It is is said to enchance sexual potency in men and was banned by the Chinese government from the 2008 Olympics.
Domesticated silver fox	Soviet Russia subsidizes the breeding of silver foxes.
Exploding toads	An as-yet unexplained phenomenon observed in April 2005 in districts of Hamburg, Germany and near a lake at Låsby, Denmark.
Exploding whale	Real whales exploded in Oregon in 1970 and Taiwan in 2004.
Fainting goats	A breed of goat whose muscles freeze for about 10 seconds when the goat is startled.
Flying pig	The classic impossibility has been officially proved possible by the Internet Engineering Task Force: "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine".
George (lobster)	A lobster weighing 20 pounds, estimated to be 140 years old.
Globster	Blobs of organic matter found washed up on beaches, which are frequently as mysterious as they are disgusting.
Handsome Dan	The various incarnations of Yale University's athletic mascot. "In personal appearance he seemed like a cross between an alligator and a horned frog...".
Hardware disease	A condition in bovines caused by ingesting stray bits of metal.
Henry the Hexapus	An octopus missing two arms due to an unfortunate birth defect.
Hoover the talking seal	A talking seal, called, surprisingly, Hoover.
Humanzee	A hypothetical (?) human/chimpanzee hybrid.
Ichthyoallyeinotoxism	Some fish produce a toxin with hallucinatory effects.
Jenny Haniver	A grotesque-looking sea monster made from the corpse of a ray.
Lin Wang	A Taiwanese elephant made famous for his participation in the Second Sino-Japanese War.
List of animals displaying homosexual behavior	Everything from salmon to seagulls to dragonflies.
List of animals with fraudulent diplomas	Your pet may be smarter than you.
Love dart	Hermaphroditic snails play Cupid.
Mary (elephant)	Makes the phrase 'hung like an elephant' take on a whole new meaning...
Mike the Headless Chicken	A rooster that lived for 18 months with its head cut off.
Montauk Monster	Actually a decaying raccoon... or is it?
Nigger (dog)	A black dog military mascot whose portrayal in The Dam Busters (1955) somehow had to be edited out, overdubbed, or renamed. Nigger's grave remains unredacted, though.
Nightingale excrement as facial	Droppings of a nightingale variety used in facials. Some claim that it helps with acne.
Nils Olav	A King Penguin who is Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Norwegian Guard.
Odd-eyed cat	One of the national treasures of Turkey. As owned by Muhammad.
Orbiting Frog Otolith	A NASA frog experiment, sending two bullfrogs into space to test their sense of balance.
Oscar the Cat	A hospice cat who was featured in the New England Journal of Medicine for his purported ability to predict the impending death of terminally ill patients.
Owen and Mzee	Hippo and tortoise that befriended each other after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus	An endangered creature, whose major predator is the sasquatch. Apparently.
Panda pornography	Pornographic movies created in order to achieve sexual arousal for Giant pandas, which have been proven to be unaffected by the popular drug Viagra.
Pasilalinic-sympathetic compass	The snail telegraph hoax.
Paul (octopus)	An psychic octopus who can predict the winner of football games, notably during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Penis fencing	A literal variety of cockfighting between some species of flatworm.
Phantom kangaroos	They're not just found in Australia.
Pig-faced women	A lesson to never compare a person's children to pigs when pregnant, lest you be cursed.
Rat king	Not the rodent monarch familiar from The Nutcracker, but a rare (some say nonexistent) phenomenon in which a group of rats grow up with their tails tangled in a knot.
Rhinogradentia	A fictitious mammal order documented by an equally fictitious German naturalist.
River Thames whale	In 2006, a Northern Bottlenose swam into London and on to the front pages of the British newspapers.
Rose	A goat that was married to a Sudanese man in 2006.
Saint Guinefort	A 13th century French dog that received veneration as a saint until the 1930s
Small shelly fauna	Yes, it's a serious article.
Soviet space dogs	That wacky Cold War!
Spherical cow	Consider a spherical cow, in vacuum...
Spider webs in space	Tests on how and whether spiders can make webs in zero gravity.
Stephens Island Wren	Made extinct by feral cats, possibly the offspring of one pregnant female.
Stray dogs in Moscow	Some of them have figured out how to commute using the subway system.
Supernumerary body part	Having an extra body part, be it as simple as an eleventh finger or as extreme as a second head!
Tama (cat)	The official station master of a railway station in Japan.
Tamworth Two	In 1998, two pigs escaped from an abattoir in Wiltshire and made news, both in the United Kingdom and worldwide. (Their story was turned into a TV movie in 2003.)
Tillamook Cheddar (dog)	The world's most successful and widely shown animal artist.
Timothy (tortoise)	A tortoise that was present during the bombardment of Sevastopol during the Crimean War in 1854 and survived until 2004.
Tirpitz (pig)	A pig who survived the sinking of one warship, to become the mascot on one of the ships that had sunk his first home. Tragically he was then auctioned off and eaten.
Weasel war dance	The behavior of extremely excited ferrets who are enjoying themselves too much.
William Windsor (goat)	A lance corporal in the 1st Battalion of the the Royal Welsh infantry battalion of the British Army, that happens to be a Cashmere goat.
Wojtek (soldier bear)	A soldier of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps who also happened to be a Syrian Brown Bear. He enjoyed beer and cigarettes.
Worm charming	No spade? No worries! There's a better way to get hold of earthworms.

See also

List of U.S. state dinosaurs (does not include any of the List of U.S. state fossils)
List of historical pigs

Plants

Arbre du Ténéré	A solitary acacia that was once the most isolated tree on Earth before being run over by a drunken Libyan truck driver.
Gernikako Arbola	The Basque national tree, centre of a number of political disputes, once put under armed guard.
Moon trees	Trees planted from seeds that were taken into space by Apollo 14.
Penis Plant	A cactus the Germans call Frauenglück, or "Women's Joy".
Queens Giant	A tulip tree located in northeastern Queens New York City, that is confirmed to be the oldest living thing in the New York metropolitan area, as well as the tallest tree in the NY metro area. As of 2005, it is up to 450 years old and 134 feet tall, and was alive before the birth of Shakespeare.
Tree of Knowledge (Australia)	Killed by ignorance.
The Tree of Life (Disney)	It's actually an oil rig.
Tree That Owns Itself	An oak tree in Athens, Georgia which is popularly regarded as owning itself.
Vegetable Lamb of Tartary	Money doesn't grow on trees, but maybe sheep do.

See also

List of famous trees

Sports

2006 rugby union handbag controversy	The All Blacks performing the Haka with handbags.
Ali Dia	A player who tricked his way into Southampton, claiming he had won 12 caps for Senegal, was related to George Weah and played for Paris St Germain. In 2007, he was called the worst ever player in the top-flight by The Times.
Argélico Fucks	A Brazilian footballer with a socially problematic last name.
Baseball metaphors for sex	Baseball Instinct.
Paula Barila Bolopa	A swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, who - much like Eric Moussambani (see below) - competed in the Sydney Olympics. Her time in the 50m freestyle is apparently the longest in Olympic history.
Steve Bartman	Chicago Cubs fan best known as a scapegoat for the Cubs' failure to advance to the World Series in 2003.
Bladderball	Yale University's contribution to the world of team sports.
Bog snorkelling	The noble art of competitive snorkelling through cold, noxious bog water.
Philip Boit	How many other Kenyan skiiers can you name?
Bottle-kicking	A ruleless drunken rugby-like sport played every Easter Monday since the 1700s in Hallaton, Leicestershire.
Buzkashi	Something like rugby, played on horseback, with a dead goat.
Chess boxing	A sport that alternates rounds of speed chess and boxing.
Competitive eating	In which the main goal is the quick and vast consumption of food.
Conger cuddling	The "most fun a person could have with a dead fish".
Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake	An annual event held each May at Cooper's Hill near Gloucester.
Curse of the Colonel	Colonel Harland Sanders wreaks revenge from beyond the grave on a Japanese baseball team.
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?
Dwarf tossing	A humorous sporting competition where well-padded dwarfs are thrown by competitors.
East Africa rugby union team	Did this rugby team really select a future dictator to play for them?
Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards	A British sportsman famous for coming last in the 1988 Winter Olympics ski-jump competition.
Eton wall game	A sport played annually on St. Andrew's Day on a 5-metre-by-110-metre 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. It was last used successfully in the pro game in 1976.
Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat	Sydney's other Olympic mascot.
Fierljeppen	A sport from the north of the Netherlands, where the objective is to jump over a trench.
Ferret legging	A sport that involves putting two live ferrets inside one's trousers with the cuffs and belt clinched firmly and no underpants worn. Current record is 5 hours 26 minutes.
Football tennis	Wimbledon meets Wembley... in Czechoslovakia.
Football war	A four day war between El Salvador and Honduras, fuelled by a game of soccer.
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.
Eddie Gaedel	A 3'7", 65-pound baseball player. Career on-base percentage: 1.000.
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 to foot and mouth disease.
Henley-on-Todd Regatta	An Australian boat race that is canceled when there is water in the river.
Human chess	Enacted by costumed "pieces" on a scaled-up chessboard.
Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg	A blue blooded Alpine skier, from the frozen wastes of Mexico City.
International Rutabaga Curling Championship	Rutabaga curling originated in the frosty December climes of Ithaca, New York.
Jamaican Bobsled Team	The real life inspiration for the film Cool Runnings.
Kudu dung spitting	Games for conservationists.
Barry Larkin (Olympics)	The man who made the Olympic Flame pants.
Lawn mower racing	Leaves the lawn in a very poor condition.
Legend of the Octopus	If you're going to an ice-hockey game in Detroit, be sure to bring your octopus.
Lingerie Football League	"Uniforms consist of helmets, shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, garter belts, bras, and panties."
Jeffrey Maier	The 12-year-old who helped the Yankees win the pennant.
Mendoza Line	Baseball's standard for underperformance.
Eric Moussambani	A swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who, in the Sydney Olympics, took twice as long as anyone else in the 100m freestyle.
New Testament athletic metaphors	Blessed are the healthy in heart...
Octopus wrestling	A sport which once attracted crowds of thousands to watch free divers wrestle North Pacific Giant Octopus from the waters of the Puget Sound.
Oorang Indians	An all-Native American National Football League team put together as a marketing gimmick to sell Airedale Terriers and known more for its halftime dog shows than for its football play.
Pillow Fight League	The first rule of Pillow Fight League is that you do not discuss Pillow Fight League.
Plainfield Teacher's College	Their football team was un-beaten, un-tied...and non-existent.
The Play	Before going onto the field for your postgame musical performance, make sure the game is over.
Poole – HAL 9000	Perhaps the geekiest page on Wikipedia.
Rabbit show jumping	Yup, really.
Rocket Racing League	It does what it says on the tin.
Sark national football team	Aka The Bad Lions, the only national team that failed to ever score a goal.
Smiggin Holes 2010 Winter Olympic bid	During the 2002 Winter Olympics, the two Australian comedians who gave the world Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat (see above) launched a bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in New South Wales, Australia.
Snail racing	Ready, steady, slow!
Sports-related curses	A variety of excuses for bad performance.
Squirrel fishing	A sport of skill and patience.
Taro Tsujimoto	An imaginary ice hockey player drafted because a manager was reportedly "fed up with the slow drafting process via the telephone".
Teddy bear toss	A Christmas tradition in minor league ice hockey.
Traditions and anecdotes associated with the Stanley Cup	An ice hockey trophy with a long history of abuse, superstition, and tests of buoyancy.
Tropical nations at the Winter Olympics	More than just Jamaican bobsledders.
Turkey bowling	So much for "don't play with your food"...
USA Rock Paper Scissors League	Organised finger sport.
Vinkenzetting	The sport of competitive finch singing in Belgium, which has dopers, cheaters, and which Thomas Hardy wrote a protest poem about.
Wife carrying	A Finnish sport that does exactly what it says (although one need not carry one's own wife).
Wooden spoon (award)	A Cambridge University tradition adopted by rugby league and rugby union, the Wooden Spoon is awarded to the last-placed team in a competition.
Yak racing	A spectator sport held at traditional festivals in Tibet and Mongolia, among other places.
Zui Quan	An ancient martial art wherein one imitates the motions of a drunkard.

Folklore

Axhandle hound	One of the many creatures in lumberjack folklore.
Bird people	The widely recurring motif in legends and fiction of birds who are people, or people who are birds.
Bigfoot trap	Believed to be the world's only Bigfoot trap.
Bonnacon	A mythical ox which flings burning dung at its enemies from its rear and horn.
Chicken or the egg	Which one did come first?
Curse of the ninth	The supposed fatal effect of composing more than eight symphonies.
Dog spinning	Do Bulgarians really twizzle their domestic canines to foretell prosperity? The UK Green Party thinks so, and they're not happy about it.
Flying ointment	A hallucinogenic ointment said to be used by witches in the Early Modern period.
Gef the talking mongoose	A poltergeist-like creature which claimed to have been an 80-year-old Indian mongoose, alleged to have haunted a Manx cottage during the 1930s.
Global Orgasm	Make love, not war... all over the world!
Jackalope	A cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope.
Jersey Devil	A mythological creature said to inhabit the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
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 princely House of Baden.
Liver bird	A legendary cormorant or eagle that is the symbol of a major English city.
Liver-Eating Johnson	A 19th-century mountain man with a penchant for revenge and the consumption of livers.
Lluvia de Peces	It's raining fish in Honduras.
Machine elf	An entity that people claim they become aware of after having taken tryptamine based psychedelic drugs such as DMT.
Man-eating tree	A cryptobotanical anomaly claimed to have been seen by early travellers to Madagascar and elsewhere.
Mongolian death worm	Exactly what it sounds like.
Monkey-man of New Delhi	Reports in 2001 of a strange monkey-like creature appearing in New Delhi at night and attacking people.
Phantom Social Workers	Mysterious claims of "social workers" seeking to abduct infants and children.
Pickled dragon	A hoax of a hoax of a pickled dragon.
Pole, Hungarian, two good friends	A two-nation proverb often cited, usually while drinking, in both Poland and Hungary.
Popobawa	A bat-winged monster from Zanzibar that sodomizes people in election times.
Reptilian humanoid	A recurring theme in fiction, especially science fiction, pseudoscientific theories, and conspiracy theories.
Rod (cryptozoology)	Photographic anomalies which some think are undiscovered flying creatures or miniature UFOs.
Sidehill Gouger	Fictional creatures said to inhabit the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and the southwestern sandhills of Saskatchewan - spoken of to confuse the gullible.
Spring Heeled Jack	A mysterious character said to have existed in England during the Victorian age.
Sweater curse	Think your loved one will be pleased if you knit them a sweater? Think again.
Tanuki	A creature from Japanese folklore best known for its huge testicles.
Tsukumogami	According to Japanese folklore, if you keep your straw sandals (or any other household items) around for 100 years, they may become "alive and aware" and develop eyes and sharp teeth.
Vagina dentata	The tooth, and nothing but the hole tooth.
Vampire pumpkins and watermelons	A folk legend from the Balkan peninsula of south-eastern Europe based upon the idea that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire.
Vril	A belief that aliens controlled Nazi Germany and helped Hitler and others to escape to the South Pole when the war was lost.
Well to Hell	A 9-mile deep tunnel drilled by Soviet scientist with the supposed sounds of millions of damned souls.

Politics, economy and law

Acoustic Kitty	A failed CIA experiment at using a cat for covert surveillance.
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.
Alien abduction insurance	As one insurance broker said, "Let’s face it – insurance is so tedious that if I can enlighten my dreary life..."
A moron in a hurry	A real legal doctrine used in passing off law.
Angie Sanselmente Valencia	A former lingerie model who now runs one of the largest drug cartels in the world
Animal trial	Historically, the law in some areas of Europe subjected animals to criminal liability for their conduct.
Animals as electoral candidates	Why be ruled by some monkey when you can get a real chimp, rhino, or pig into office?
Bagism	A social ideology created by the Beatle, John Lennon, and his wife, Yoko 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 of beards and opposes discrimination against those who wear them.
Big Mac Index	Big Mac Economics.
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 defacing tobacco and alcohol billboard advertisements in order to promote healthy living.
Biotic Baking Brigade	Pie-throwing anarchists.
Bling Ring	Star of reality TV show gets involved with group who burglarizes star of another reality TV show.
Bulb to light all Ramat Gan	How a light bulb caused embarrassment for Likud.
Burning money	Which can provide for behaviour modification, political notoriety, and a warm fireplace.
Conch Republic	As a protest against the federal government, Key West declared independence in a tongue-in-cheek secession from the nation, declared war on the U.S., then surrendered one minute later and applied for one billion dollars in foreign aid.
Dewey, Cheatem & Howe	A fictional law firm that takes advantage of its clients.
Ding Hai effect	A sudden drop in the stock market that follows whenever Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng stars in a new TV show.
EURion constellation	Secret recognition codes you can find on more and more banknotes.
Euromyth	Paranoid and imaginative speculations about the bureaucratic excesses of the European Union.
Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet	What else would you call a Canadian politician?
Flatulence tax	When you keep a lot of cattle, you're contributing significantly to the greenhouse effect ... aren't you?
Fourth International Posadist	Trotskyism and UFOs - two great tastes that taste great together.
Free Bench	An unusual manorial legal custom from England whereby a remarried widow could inherit her deceased husband's land only if she rode into court backwards on a black ram and recited a nonsense verse.
Guerrilla gardening	That'll teach 'em good!
Guilt not proven	A controversial Scots law verdict for those neither guilty nor innocent.
Handedness of Presidents of the United States	A statistically surprising proportion of recent U.S. presidents were lefties.
H'Angus	A monkey football mascot who was elected mayor of Hartlepool, England with a platform of "free bananas for all schoolchildren".
Ich bin ein Berliner	President Kennedy did not actually call himself a jelly donut in front of a German audience.
Jakob Maria Mierscheid	A fictitious politician in the German Bundestag since 1979, originally introduced in the 1920s by Weimar Social Democrats to avoid paying restaurant bills. Discovered the Mierscheid Law.
Jennifer Gale	A homeless transgender woman that gained some measure of fame for repeatedly running for public office in Austin, Texas and for singing during city council meetings.
Jimmy Carter rabbit incident	Former President Jimmy Carter's scrape with a killer rabbit.
Kasongo Ilunga	Elected Minister of Foreign Trade for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, no-one knows whether Ilunga exists or not.
Pedro Lascuráin	A President for less than an hour.
Lawsuits against the Devil	Goddam devil dun made mah daughter possessed. Ah gonna git mah lawyer on the case.
Lawsuits against God	A notoriously apathetic defendant, he/she/it has never turned up for one of his/her/its hearings.
Legislative violence	Where politicians actively fight for what they believe in.
Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc.	Would you expect to be able to swap 7 million points (worth $700,000) for a Harrier jump jet (worth $22 million)? This man did, and took Pepsi to court when they failed to supply him one. Unsurprisingly (to everyone except Leonard), he lost.
Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle	A television show produced by the communist government of North Korea intended to educate the public on good and bad hairstyles.
Đorđe Martinović	How the insertion of a beer bottle into the rectum of a Serbian farmer caused a major ethnic and political controversy in Serbia in 1985 and contributed to the collapse of Yugoslavia.
Memoirs v. Massachusetts	A U.S. Supreme Court case concerning whether the 1749 book Fanny Hill was entitled to First Amendment protection. One of the dissenting opinions contained an extensive discussion of the supposedly pornographic content.
McGillicuddy Serious Party	A satirical political party in New Zealand.
McMartin preschool trial	The most expensive trial in U.S. history, a sexual abuse trial in which hundreds of children made bizarre allegations of flying and killing giraffes, orgies at car washes, flying in hot-air balloons, and being flushed down toilets into secret underground rooms where they were abused.
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?
Montreal-Philippines cutlery controversy	A 7-year-old boy's eating habits became an international incident.
Nebraska Admiral	The landlocked U.S. state of Nebraska and its "Great Navy".
New shoes on budget day	One of Canada's less grand political traditions.
Nix v. Hedden	The U.S. Supreme Court decides that the tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit.
Old Deluder Satan Law	How 17th century Massachusetts sought to rid itself of the Prince of Darkness.
Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency)	A notorious rotten borough in Great Britain which, before 1832, was entitled to elect 2 members of Parliament even though it had only 11 voters and no residents.
Richard Nixon mask	One of the most popular masks in the U.S.
Emperor Norton	Emperor Norton I, the man who claimed to be "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico" in 1859.
Official Monster Raving Loony Party	A British political party which does exactly what it says on the tin.
Oliver Cromwell's head	Yes this article is precisely about the severed head of Oliver Cromwell which was put on display for many years.
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 in Poland in the early 1990s.
Prohibition of death	There are really some places where death is illegal. (Although it is unknown what happens to anyone who breaks this law.)
Rai stones	Stone money, some of which is 3 meters (10 ft) in diameter, and weigh 4 metric tons (8,800 lb).
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks	They told Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire to fuck his mother - seriously!
Resignation from the British House of Commons	This has been illegal since 1623.
Rhinoceros Party of Canada	A registered political party in Canada, which often promised outlandishly impossible schemes designed to amuse and entertain the voting public.
Sentinelese	An autonomous stone-age human tribe which completely avoids contact with the outside world.
Shanghai Fugu Agreement	A completely fictitious international treaty accepted by the German state of Hesse in 1985.
Jonathon Sharkey	A self-proclaimed vampire who was a Minnesota governorship candidate in 2006.
Small penis rule	A technique used by authors to avoid libel lawsuits.
Socialist Patients' Collective	You've heard of the lone nut? These are organized nuts...
Statue of Lenin (Seattle)	After fleeing Czechoslovakia following the fall of Communism, Lenin now makes his home in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood.
Ilona Staller	Hungarian porn star elected to the Italian Parliament.
Stambovsky v. Ackley	Also known as the Ghostbusters case, the court ruled that a house in Nyack, New York was legally haunted by ghosts.
State of Louisiana v. Frisard	A man is liable for child support even if he does not have sexual intercourse with the child's mother.
Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner	The featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.
Swastika Laundry	A laundry service whose electric vans cheerfully displayed the notorious symbol all around Dublin until at least the 1960s.
Tsang Tsou Choi	He claimed to be the "Kowloon emperor" since the 1970s.
Tanganyika groundnut scheme	A brilliant scheme by the British Government to grow peanuts where there were none before (for good reason).
Taxation of illegal income in the United States	Don't worry: you can deduct your illegal activity expenses.
Keron Thomas	He posed as a motorman on the New York City Subway, successfully operating a train for three and a half hours at the age of sixteen in 1993.
Toy Biz v. United States	Are the X-Men humans under U.S. law?
John C. Turmel	The world's least-successful would-be politician, with a record of zero wins and 70 losses in campaigns since 1979.
United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff	Who has jurisdiction over Satan?
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement	A movement that calls for the voluntary extinction of the human race.
Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan	A fictitious scientific study by J.G. Ballard supposedly circulated at the 1980 Republican Convention which, among other things, compared the face of Ronald Reagan to a penile erection.
Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda	Mexican eccentric who participated in the presidential elections no less than ten times. He always lost but claimed to be the victor, and considered himself to be the country's president for several decades.

See also

Religion and spirituality

A representation of Kolob (reference numeral 1).

Axinomancy	Foretelling the future by looking at an axe or hatchet.
Banquet of Chestnuts	Enough to make even the most committed and die hard Roman Catholic agree that the church was in a pretty poor state at the time of the Reformation.
Ben Hana	A Wellington, New Zealand homeless man who worships the Maori sun God Ra (not to be confused with the ancient Egyptian sun God of the same name).
Bible errata	A typesetter's complaint finds justification in Psalm 119.
Cadaver Synod	In 897, Pope Stephen VI dug up the body of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, dressed the body in papal vestments and seated him on a throne while Pope Stephen read charges against him and conducted a trial.
Caca (mythology)	A character of Roman mythology that wasn't successful. For some reason.
Caganer	A traditional Catalan statue (similar to a garden gnome) that depicts a person defecating, often used in Christmas decorations.
Cargo cult	A belief system, often from Melanesia, concerned with obtaining Western manufactured goods.
Christmas in Nazi Germany	The Nazi Party reinvented Christmas by removing a certain baby boy raised in the Jewish faith.
Harold Davidson	1930s Church of England clergyman, known as "The prostitutes' padre" and "the Rector of Stiffkey" who was defrocked, and died after being mauled by a toothless lion.
Fluffy bunny	A controversy in wicca.
Flying Spaghetti Monster	A satirical religion created to make fun of Intelligent Design. Its supernatural creator is a monster which resembles spaghetti and meatballs.
Gang Bing	After his act of self-castration he became the patron saint of eunuchs.
Hell bank note	The Chinese afterlife is apparently subject to hyperinflation.
Holy Prepuce	One of several relics purported to be associated with Jesus. Also known as The Holy Foreskin.
Homosexuality and Voodoo	Surely a troll, you say? No! A perfectly legitimate article!
Incident (Scientology)	Bodies in pawn, Bubble Gum Incident, Obscene Dog Incident etc
Invisible Pink Unicorn	A satire aimed at theistic beliefs. The satire consists of a goddess in the form of a unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink.
Islamic toilet etiquette	The large number of rules to be followed by Muslims when relieving themselves.
Jedi census phenomenon	A phenomenon in which 390,000 British citizens listed their religion as Jedi Knight on a 2001 census form, which made Jedi Knight the fourth-largest religion in England and Wales.
Jerusalem Syndrome	For some people a visit there is just too much.
Jesus H. Christ	Does it stand for Henry?
Kachchhera	Sikh underwear.
Kolob	Which star does God live on?
List of Buddha claimants	Enlighten us, please.
List of messiah claimants	See above.
List of names for the Biblical nameless	Not so anonymous, by God.
List of people who have claimed to be Jesus	Excluding Jesus himself.
List of people who have been considered deities	What it says.
List of UFO religions	Our father, which art in spaceship...
Matshishkapeu	The "fart man" of Innu mythology. Don't cross him or he'll make you constipated.
The Miracle of the Sun	70,000 people in Portugal gather to witness a miracle and are treated to an inexplicable solar event.
Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible	The Bible refers to lost books, and even pagan ones, much more than you would think.
Open source religion	And we're not talking about the Church of Emacs either.
Pope Joan	Are medieval documents citing the existence of a female pope proof of a Vatican cover up or a blasphemous slur?
Pope Michael	Elected Pope in 1990 by a group of Conclavist or post-Sedevacantist Catholics to fill the vacancy they consider to have been caused by the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958.
Prince Philip Movement	A religious movement on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu which holds that Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is a divine being.
Pornocracy	The period of the papacy in the early 10th century, beginning with Pope Sergius III from 904 and ending with the death of Pope John XII in 963. During this period, the popes were under the influence of corrupt women (though not necessarily prostitutes), especially Theodora and her daughter, Marozia. This period is also called the "Rule of the Harlots."
Reincarnation Application	Must be filed by all living Buddha within the People's Republic of China, before they are allowed to reincarnate.
Religion in Antarctica	There's more of it than you might suspect, including five churches.
Religious pareidolia	The phenomenon of the appearance of religious images in corn chips, cinnamon rolls and the like.
Rumspringa	Amish Gone Wild.
St. Priapus Church	A religion based on the worship of the phallus.
Space opera in Scientology scripture	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."
Taghairm	A couple of uncomfortable methods of fortune telling.
Tallit katan	Underwear worn by strict Jews.
Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera	Was Jesus' father buried in Germany?
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.
Unfulfilled religious predictions	Doomsdays that didn't.
Universe people	Specific cult in Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Ussher chronology	A 17th-century Irish bishop claimed to know the exact day, date and time of creation.
Winterval	A word created as an alternative name for all the holidays at the end of a calendar year. It came to prominence after Birmingham City Council (the English city).
Xenu	An ancient interstellar dictator who unleashed a genocide which created Christianity and psychiatry and whose story is "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it."
Zipporah at the inn	God apparently tries (and fails) to kill Moses.

See also

List of sexually active popes

Military

Bazooka Vespa, the ultimate in Mod warfare.

3rd Dental Battalion	Even Marines have to keep their teeth clean
Anglo-Zanzibar War	The world's shortest war. The sultan of Zanzibar capitulated after forty-five minutes.
Anti-tank dog	Soviet weapon of the Second World War.
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	World War II plan to bomb Japan with bats carrying tiny incendiary bombs.
Battle of Tanga	World War I battle where 8,000 British troops were defeated by a German-led force of 1,100 Askaris - aided by swarms of angry bees.
Bazooka Vespa	Placing France at the cutting edge of weapons system design.
Bicycle infantry	Soldiers have occasionally been trained to use the bicycle for military purposes.
Boot Monument	In celebration of Benedict Arnold's foot.
Chicken powered nuclear bomb	The role of the domestic chicken in nuclear warfare.
Jack Churchill	A British soldier who fought through World War II armed with a bow, arrows and a claymore.
Emu War	A military operation undertaken in Western Australia against hordes of emus.
Fag bomb	Photographed on the USS Enterprise during the US invasion of Afghanistan... Not to be confused with Gay bomb
Football war	A 6 day war fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 ignited by a game of football (soccer).
Gay bomb	A potential non-lethal chemical weapon, which a U.S. Air Force research laboratory speculated about producing, that could be dropped on enemy troops to cause "homosexual behaviour". Not to be confused with Fag bomb
Glasgow Ice Cream Wars	In 1984, violent conflicts between ice cream vendors left 6 people dead.
Grand Panjandrum	Britain's World War II, Catherine wheel of death.
Human torpedo	Human torpedoes or manned torpedoes were secret naval weapons of World War II.
Line-crossing ceremony	An initiation rite performed in the navy when a ship crosses the equator.
List of wartime crossdressers	Because war demands proper fashion.
Miss Russian Army	A beauty contest, minus the swimsuit competition, added 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.
NORAD Tracks Santa	A tradition with the American and Canadian military to track Santa Claus for children.
Hiroo Onoda	A Japanese soldier who hid out in the Philippines during World War II, refusing to surrender until 1974.
Philadelphia Experiment	An alleged experiment in 1943 involving electromagnetic technology to render vessels invisible.
Pig War	A war between the United States and the British Empire that almost erupted over one dead pig.
Project Habakkuk	A British plan to construct an aircraft carrier out of ice (pykrete).
Project Pigeon	Bombs guided by pigeon pecks.
Sacred Band of Thebes	An ancient Greek army consisting of homosexual couples.
Sergeant Stubby	The only dog to be promoted to sergeant through combat.
Siachen Glacier	The world's highest battlefield, with very predictable terrain.
SS Lesbian	This is where the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy comes in.
Sticky bomb	The most unpopular weapon the British soldier has ever been asked to use.
Stanislav Petrov	Potentially averted a nuclear war.
Tachanka	Twentieth century chariot used in combat.
Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War	A "war" that lasted 335 years without a single shot being fired, between the Netherlands and the tiny Isles of Scilly.
Toledo War	A war between the State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory that resulted in one injury and over a century of bitterness.
Truelove Eyre	A man who supposedly saved William the Conqueror's life during the Battle of Hastings.
Tsar Tank	A Imperial Russian tank designed as a tricycle with nine-metre wheels.
UFO sightings in Iraq	Something else for Iraqis to worry about.
United States military chocolate	Originally designed to taste "little better than a boiled potato." Not much has changed.
U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program	A U.S. Navy program which studies the military use of Bottlenose Dolphins and California Sea Lions.
Vasiliy Arkhipov	Another guy who potentially adverted nuclear war
War of Jenkins' Ear	A nine year war, started when Captain Robert Jenkins complained that Spanish Coastguard had cut off his ear.
War of the Insane	Hmong revolt against taxing by the French colonial administration in Indochina lasting from 1918 to 1921.
War Plan Red	U.S. war plans from the 1930s to invade Canada in the unlikely event of war with the United Kingdom. Also see the counterpart war plan Defence Scheme No. 1 (the Canadian war plan to invade the United States).
Who me?	A top secret stench weapon designed to be unobtrusively sprayed on German officers by French Resistance members.

See also

Death

Boston Molasses Disaster	Twenty-one people died in 1919 when a huge tank at a confectionery factory burst, sending a wave of molasses down the streets of Boston.
Chess-related deaths	Chess can be suprisingly dangerous.
Collyer brothers	When packratting was taken to a tragic extreme.
Death erection	It is possible to die happy, even if you've lived a less-than-stellar life.
Death of Kenneth Pinyan	Horses can ride people too...
Defenestration	The time-honoured tradition of throwing people out of windows.
Execution by elephant	An unusual form of capital punishment used throughout history. (See also History of elephants in Europe.)
Fan death	A persistent urban legend in South Korea, where the media, and even many medical professionals, regularly report on people dying because of having left a fan on in a closed room.
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead	An early catch phrase used on Saturday Night Live, based upon the dictator's lengthy death.
Jack the Stripper	The other unidentified serial killer named Jack.
Kick the bucket	The heated argument of the origin of this very funny idiom about death.
Lal Bihari	"I'm not quite dead!"
List of expressions related to death	What do 'go home in a box', 'go bung' and 'hop the stick' mean?
London Beer Flood	In 1814 London, nine people were drowned by a flood of more than 300,000 gallons of beer.
London Necropolis railway station	A past station built solely for funeral trains
Lord Uxbridge's leg	The grisly afterlife of a leg lost during the Battle of Waterloo, formerly owned by Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey.
Maschalismos	The act of mutilating the dead to prevent them from rising again.
Pacific Northwest human foot discoveries	Dismembered feet keep washing up on the shores of the Salish Sea.
Poe Toaster	A mysterious figure who pays an annual tribute to American author Edgar 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.
Republican marriage	A form of execution in which a naked man and woman are tied together and drowned. (What did you think it was?)
Rookwood Cemetery railway line, Sydney	A former railway line that served a cemetery near Sydney.
Richard Chase	The only way to stop the Nazi-controlled UFOs from poisoning your macaroni and cheese is to inject yourself with animal blood and eat human brains.
Safety coffin	Coffins manufactured just in case their tenant is not actually dead before being buried.
Sky burial	It's not really a form of burial. Also known as jhator which means "giving alms to the birds."
Sogen Kato	Regarded as the oldest man in Tokyo, he turns out to have died at age 79.
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.
Toilet-related injury	As if constipation wasn't enough.
Valentich Disappearance	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.
Video-Enhanced Grave Marker	Graves with video screens and speakers on them.

See also

Questions

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.
Chicken or the egg	Which came first?
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?	Lady Marmalade wasn't the only one asking this.
Where's the beef?	In 1984, people thought this was really funny for some reason.
Why did the chicken cross the road?	People have asked this for over 150 years.