Top 10 Biggest Explosions

10There is something very fascinating about watching the destructive beauty of things blowing up. It seems that every decent action movie has to have some kind of spectacular explosion. However, in real life there have been many kinds of explosions, and many are greater than the big ones in movies. Here is a brief list of the biggest explosions known to mankind.




10 FOAB



Type: Largest explosion created by a non-nuclear weapon

FOAB (Father of all Bombs) is a Russian tactical weapon, designed to detonate in midair and deliver an incinerating Shockwave to the target area below it. The bomb yields the equivalent of 44 Tons of TNT, making it about as powerful as the smallest nuclear weapons in existence. However, FOAB does not generate the radioactive fallout that nuclear weapons do. FOAB is part of a “miniature arms race” between the United States and Russia. In 2003, the United States developed MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb) which is a similar device with a yield of 11 tons of TNT. MOAB was quickly termed the “Mother of all Bombs” in accordance with its acronym. In an apparent response, Russia developed its “Father of all Bombs”, in 2007, which it claims is four times as powerful and slightly lighter in weight. However, the United States Military is dubious of these claims, and says that it is very possible that the film that Russia released on the test was doctored, and that several of the “facts” about the bomb were exaggerated for propaganda purposes.



9 Minor Scale



Type: Largest man-made conventional explosion

Minor Scale was a test performed by the United States, on June 27, 1985. The United States Defense Nuclear agency detonated almost 5,000 tons of ammonium nitrate fuel oil, to simulate the effect of a nuclear weapon. The main purpose was to see how a small nuclear weapon would affect military hardware. In the photograph, an F-4 Phantom can be seen in the wake of the explosion. An interesting fact: There is a dispute about whether or not this was, in fact, the largest conventional explosion. The Heligoland explosion was carried out by Great Britain when the Royal Navy detonated 6,700 tons of leftover arsenal from WWII. While the Guinness Book of Records records Heligoland as being larger, the yield of Minor Scale was greater by about half a kiloton of TNT.



8 Tunguska Event



Type: Largest impact of recorded history

On June 30, 1908, there was a large explosion above the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in Russia. The explosion created an estimated yield of 10-15 megatons of TNT, or about 1,000 times the yield of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. While there are a good number of conspiracy theories as to what caused the explosion, the majority of the scientific community agrees that it was caused by a meteoroid exploding in midair. Even though the meteoroid exploded in midair, the event is still considered an impact. The explosion is believed to have occurred in midair because, even though there have been several searches for it, no one has ever been able to find the crater. However, there was an area of about 2,150 square km where trees were bent away from the epicenter of the blast.



7 Tsar Bomba



Type: Largest man-made explosion

Tsar Bomba was a hydrogen bomb developed by the Soviet Union, and tested on October 30, 1961. With a yield of 57 megatons, it was the most powerful man-made explosion ever. The bomb was actually originally intended to be more around 100 megatons, but the fallout of such a device would have been too problematic. Even though Tsar Bomba was detonated in the very remote location of the Novaya Zemlya island chain, north of the Russian mainland, it still caused a great deal of collateral damage. A village 55 km from the test site was completely leveled. Damage to buildings occurred as far away as Norway and Finland. The explosion created a mushroom cloud 64 km high, and a Shockwave that was still detectable on its third passage around the earth.



6 Mount Tambora Eruption



Type: Largest Earthbound explosion recorded by humans

On April 5, 1815, Mt. Tambora erupted in Sambawa, Indonesia, creating the most powerful explosion ever witnessed by humans in historic times. The Tambora eruption is estimated to have unleashed the equivalent of 800 megatons of TNT, making it about 14 times more powerful than Tsar Bomba. The eruption was heard as far away as Sumatra, which is 2,600 km away. Before the eruption, Mt. Tambora was 4.3 cm tall, but after it was only 2.85 cm tall. The volcano created an ash column 43 km high, and dispersed ash into the stratosphere and around the globe. This ash blocked out the Sun and caused the year 1816 to be the second coldest year in recorded history. Crop failures and famines occurred all over Europe and North America. It is estimated that about 10,000 people died directly from the eruption, and that about 70,000 died from the resulting climate change.


5 Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction Event



Type: Largest known Earthbound explosion

About 65 million years ago, an event known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary Event caused the extinction of many organisms, but is most famous for causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Many scientists believe that this was caused by an asteroid impact that created the Chicxulub Crater located off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. It is estimated that the explosive force of this impact would have been the equivalent of 96 teratons of TNT, or about 1.7 million Tsar Bombas. This would make the impact the greatest explosion to ever occur on earth, for which there is sufficient geological evidence. The impact would have caused climate change, much like Mt. Tambora but much more drastic, and this climate change is believed to be what ultimately killed the dinosaurs.



4 GRB 080319B



Type: Largest explosion ever directly witnessed by humans

Gamma-ray bursts are among the most violent known events in the universe. The exact cause of Gamma-ray bursts is not fully understood, although most astronomers hold that they are linked to extremely large supernovae. Gamma-ray bursts usually last 20 to 40 seconds and shine gamma-rays (hence the name) in a relatively narrow direction. Gamma-ray bursts are extremely rare, with one occurring every few hundred thousand years in each galaxy. On March 19, 2008, a gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B occurred, and was visible to the naked eye for about 30 seconds. The explosion took place 7.5 billion light-years away, making the most distant object viewable without a telescope. The explosion is estimated to have generated the equivalent of 2×1034 tons of TNT, or about the equivalent of 10,000 times the Sun’s weight in TNT detonating all at once.



3 SN2006gy



Type: Largest known supernova

On September 16, 2006, the largest known supernova, SN2006gy, was discovered. Supernovae occur when stars run out of fuel, collapse on themselves, and then explode. Extremely large supernovae, or hypernovae, is among the most violent events in the universe, and are believed by many to be the source of gamma-ray bursts. SN2006gy occurred 230 million light years away, when a star about 150 times as massive as the Sun collapsed on itself. The amount of energy output by this Hypernova is estimated to be approximately equivalent to 2.5×1035 tons of TNT, which is roughly the same amount of energy put out by all the stars in the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies in one minute. An interesting fact: Because Hypernova are usually caused by very large stars, there is usually enough remaining material from the star to continue collapsing after the explosion. This remaining material will sometimes collapse until its volume reaches zero. This means that many Hypernova form black holes.


2 GRB 080916C



Type: Largest true explosion ever

The universe is a big place. Astronomically large objects are difficult to comprehend, and the largest known explosion, GRB 080916C is no different. GRB 080916C was a gamma-ray burst that was first recorded on September 16, 2008. The burst occurred about 12.2 billion light-years away and lasted 23 minutes, which is a very long duration of a gamma-ray burst. For those 23 minutes, the gamma-ray burst was putting out more energy than most galaxy superclusters. It is estimated that the blast had the equivalent amount of energy of 2×1038 tons of TNT. That’s the same as a trillion Tsar Bombs going off every second for 110 billion years, or about 7,000 times the amount of energy that the Sun is expected to put out in its lifetime.


1 Big Bang

 
Type: Largest “explosion” ever

It’s only appropriate that the Big Bang be number one. However, the Big Bang was technically not an explosion. An explosion occurs when matter moves through space from a high pressure point to a low pressure point, and does so very, very rapidly. However, the Big Bang involved space itself expanding rapidly, not matter expanding through space. In fact, because the universe is still expanding, one could argue that the Big Bang is still occurring. Another misconception about the Big Bang Theory is that it does not explain how the universe began, or how matter and energy first came to be. It only explains how space rapidly expanded about 5.4×10-44 seconds after the universe began.

10 Unbelievable Technologies that Exist Now

10 Unbelievable Technologies that Exist Now

We have now passed the half way point of the year, and what a great year it is shaping up to be. Let’s take a step back, though, to a time when things were simpler. Friends was the coolest show on TV, Britney Spears was a new, annoying sensation and The Matrix was better than anything that had ever existed. Ever.

Technology was really starting to pick up back then, and the Internet was finally starting to seem like more than a flash in the pan. If only we could go back to those times, even if but for a moment, and see the innocence and naivety in our own eyes as we looked onto a wonderful future of incredible technological advancement.
The state of technology in 1999 was pretty impressive, we thought, and it was hard to imagine things getting much better. We were doing pretty well for ourselves and surely wouldn't see any major technological advancements for decades to come.

Ten years later, the world is a very different place than we never could have imagined, in our wildest of dreams. There has been a surge of revolutionary technologies in the last decade that even Science Fiction couldn't have predicted. Everything from the way we play, to the way we think, has been challenged due to these advancements. Here are just a few.





10 Portable Gaming Devices

Just before the turn of the millennium, portable gaming was booming. Most people that had a portable gaming device sported a Game-boy  and the really lucky ones had a Game-boy Color. There was always that one rich kid at Pizza Hut, too, with the Sega Game-gear that people couldn't stop talking about, and Pokemon was taking the world by storm.
At night, you would fall asleep with images of the Atari Lynx swimming around in your head and hope that one day you could afford one. 10 years later, you’re glad that your parents never sprung for one of them.
Not long after that part of your life, the portable gaming world changed dramatically. With their staunch lead, Nintendo started to be more experimental and it paid off. The Game-boy Advance put quality graphics that were slightly above Super Nintendo, and sound in the palm of your hand, and further still the Nintendo DS (a few years later) managed to squeeze out post-N64 quality gaming with a touch-screen, and opened up a whole new world of gaming possibilities.
What’s more impressive is that, for once, Nintendo had some serious competition in the portable gaming racket. Sony took their powerful juggler naught, the PlayStation 2, and compressed it into a comfortable, handheld console that demanded respect. Graphics and sound quality that Sony was notorious for could now be enjoyed, portable, on a beautiful 4.3″ screen.
If only you knew, back in your room 10 years ago, that things were about to change, and that one day you would forget all about the Atari Lynx… until you read about it in a List verse article.



9 Hybrid Cars

Electric cars have been on the tongues and minds of consumers for decades, and the conspiracies and facts behind their obvious exclusion in the automotive world have raised a lot of questions and frustrations. Electric cars will greatly reduce man-made pollution, make the roads quieter and safer, and take the icky smell out of the air at Quick-e-marts worldwide. They’re an obvious “next step” in technological evolution.

In 1999, however, during a time when much of the world experienced a great deal of prosperity, the electric car was little more than a pipe dream. We all thought it sounded like a neat idea but were reluctant to accept it as a real possibility in the near future.

Well, we were half right.
Hybrid cars have finally clawed their way into the spotlight. Their part-gasoline-part-electric functionality has brought the whole concept of being “carbon sensitive” into the mainstream. Gasoline cars got the job done, but required too much pollution and too low of gas mileage to be acceptable anymore. Electric cars were silent and gave off virtually no pollution, but had to be recharged every 50-100 miles. The hybrid was the perfect answer.
It’s true that we still have a few years (but possibly fewer than we think) until we see every car on the street be Electric Powered, but for now the number of cars that run at least *partially* on electric power would incite quite a bit of skepticism one decade ago.




8 Solid State Data Storage

In 1999, if you had an 8 gigabyte (gb) hard drive, you were the cool kid on the block. “What can you possibly fill that whole thing up with?” your friends would ask you.

Computer games you bought at the store fit on a single CD-ROM, and everyone knew that you had to wait for your hard drive to spin up before each level. Those of us who were especially caring of our expensive, magnetic, spindled drums of data would even run Scan disk and Def rag on them (which would take hours, of course). Things were looking up, too, as hard drive experts predicted that in the year 2000, 30gb hard drives could be as cheap as $200.

Now, imagine yourself waking up in the middle of the night because someone outside your window is throwing pebbles on it. When you open your window, you notice that they look exactly like you, only about 10 years older. They tell you not to worry, because in a single decade hard drives will be ridiculously smaller, lack any moving parts, be practically weightless and can withstand far more brutal environments.

Oh, and it’s far cheaper, too. You know that 8gb hard drive you just spent $150 on? You can get one that fits in your coin pocket for $15, down the street.




7 Broadband Internet

Remember ISDN? Integrated Service Digital Network? Although it’s possible that you do, it’s far more likely that you don’t. It was the closest thing to broadband in 1999.

No, the vast majority of people accessed the internet from a 56k modem. Those who were not at least in the lower-middle class, however, had to dink around a 14.4 modem, or worse: 2400 baud. It’s enough to make one shudder.
Back then, though, the internet was a much simpler place. Text, images and an occasional embedded MIDI were all that was expected of any given website. Animated GIF’s were the future, and Flash showed some serious potential.
These days, however, the internet is a wonderland of bandwidth-sucking marvels. Streaming video and music, Bit Torrent and Cloud Storage systems are everyday necessities and require almost as much bandwidth as our hard drives do. If you were to try to watch a 10 minute YouTube video back in 1999, it would take 68 minutes to buffer. These days, if it takes more than 15 seconds, we get our ISP on the line.



6 The iPhone

Almost anyone can admit that when they first heard of the iPhone, they thought it was a hoax.

Criticize it, love it, boycott it; it’s undeniably one of the most influential changes to the consumer electronics world in the last 10 years. It has revolutionized how we see and use cell phones and has inspired numerous alternatives. These days, devices that have nothing to do with cell phone technology adopt the most popular features of the iPhone. Touch screens, flick-style scrolling, app-based operating systems (complete with some rendition of an ‘Application Repository/Market’ system), device screens that almost completely cover the system, drawer-style interface elements and mobile internet browsing have all become commonplace since the iPhone, and for good reason. The iPhone did what everyone wanted, but no one had yet accomplished.

Suddenly having the full, non-WAP-based internet at your fingertips was demanded by the masses. Many other devices offering similar features (Google Android, WebOS/PalmPre, etc.) sprung up to offer competition, which is a common sign of extreme influence over an entire industry. And let us not forget the iPhone 4g which is now offering video calling between phones – a dream that many of us thought impossible some twenty or so years ago.
To sit down and describe the iPhone to someone back in 1999 would be the equivalent of describing the Hollyhock to someone today.




5 The Nintendo Wii

The Nintendo Wii has been criticized for its hype, but any way you look at it, it’s a revolutionary system. The graphics aren't as good as the competition and the media capabilities are lacking among its peers, but the number of sales speaks for itself: The Wii is a hit. Why? Well, unless you call your local quarry an apartment complex, you know.

It’s motion-capture technology, among the multitude of other unique interfaces (the Wii Fit board, Nun chuck and numerous attachments to make them seem more like their digital counterparts), have set it above the rest. It’s, arguably, so impressive that most users can forgive its lackluster shortcomings. Even grandma is off the couch, now, and tossing a bowling ball down the lane.
Despite all of the controversies around the Nintendo Wii, remember that, in 1999, the best system on the market was the Dream cast (which was considered ahead of its time). Along with the dream cast was the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. If you were to convince someone to pause Super Mario 64 for a moment and tell them that, in 10 years, there was going to be a system that allowed you to control the game by way of virtually free motion, they would laugh at you and go right back to stomping Goombas.




4 HD TV

As with most technological advancements, we don’t know how good it can be until we see it. Television in 1999 was downright fuzzy by today’s standards. The visual differentiation between DVD and VHS was negligible and live TV was the highest quality it had ever been before.

The video files out there would watch their DVD’s on their computer screens, where it — for some reason — looked much crisper. Of course, the reason why it looked so much clearer was that it was higher resolution.
The average, standard definition television renders at about the equivalent of 640×480 pixel resolution. That was more than enough to see the hairs on Grace’s head, but had you an HD television, you’d be able to see Will’s five-o-clock stubble.
HD television is still not quite as common as standard definition, but if the other advancements on this list are any indication — that is about to change. The prices of consumer-level High Definition televisions is on the decline, and it’s expected that the number of HD TV’s in the United States will increase significantly this holiday season.
Think it’ll take another 10 years for an HD TV to be in the living room of every American Home?




3 iPods

Yes, yes, it’s true that the iPod isn't the only MP3 player on the market, but given the fact that it was the first MP3 player to end up in the average person’s pocket is enough clout to put it on this list.

To understand the influence the iPod has had over music in general, you have to understand how much more it did than put a music player in the pockets of the every man.
The iPod played a pivotal role in the MP3 format. With the ability to have a hard drive’s worth of songs in your pocket came the need to squeeze as many songs into a confined space as possible. The MP3 format, with sound quality that is indistinguishable from CD’s by the average ear, put thousands of songs where only dozens once stood. These days, an album of MP3′s is far more common than the CD, and more people are listening to music now on a daily basis than ever.




2 WiFi

Wireless technology was still relatively immature in 1999. Cell phones were relatively common, but still a luxury (and a bit larger than they are, now). Texting wasn't very popular, and data plans were light years behind where they are now. Beyond that, the only other common access to wireless technology was the radio stations we would play in our car.

The Internet was primarily accessed at home, or more commonly at higher speeds at your local library or your school’s computer lab. The internet was quickly building momentum, and local area networking (LAN) was pretty commonplace for LAN gaming and business communication. Few people were unaware of computer networking.
The problem, however, was wired connections and lack of portability. If you brought your laptop to work, it essentially became a small desktop, tethered forever to the wall for network access. Anyone familiar with the LAN party scene of the late 90′s remember how long it would take to get everyone connected to the network, able to “see” each other and, furthermore, able to communicate properly. No one complained much about the technology at the time, simply because no one realized how much easier it would be in the near future.
If you told someone in 1999 that, in 10 years, they could “beam” a video from a computer in one room to another computer halfway across the house, they would tell you it was science fiction. How could you transmit that amount of bandwidth over the airwaves? The concept was as alien as UFO’s.
What is really strange about the WiFi phenomenon is that it could be considered a nearly silent infiltration of consumer electronics. It seemed like overnight WiFi went from an interesting, speculative article you read in Wired to being advertised on every coffee shop window in town. Now, suddenly, you found yourself charging your laptop twice a day, instead of just leaving it plugged in and connected to the network all day long.


1 The Wiki Reader
In the 2002 movie The Time Machine (and, also, the original masterpiece by H.G. Wells), a character named Vox calls himself, “a compendium of all human knowledge.”

That concept alone (even in 2002) was pretty remarkable. To have a single source, with an easy-to-use interface, for access to all the recorded knowledge that humans have ever achieved was a concept of wonder and awe that the average person could only dream about.
Then Wikipedia came. Now, right off the bat, no doubt many of you are warming up your keyboards to smash out disappointment in Wikipedia being cited as anything but a hacked together Super Blog. It’s true, there is quite a bit of literary vandalism on Wikipedia and a huge portion of the cited resources within the site simply refer to *more* websites. However, the enormous amount of *verifiable* knowledge within is adequate enough to be considered — arguably — the largest collection of human knowledge ever compiled.
That concept alone, as amazing as it is, would likely be believable. A really huge website with a whole lot of text. Sites like that existed even back in 1999.
What would likely *not* be conceivable, is being able to hold all of that information in the palm of your hand, retrievable at any time. Any time that someone asks you about something that you don’t know, or if you find yourself lost for information in a jam or if you simply want to be able to prove someone’s claims as utterly false, that now is possible at a moment’s notice.


“But I can do that with my phone,” you might say. That’s true! Accessing Wikipedia from the data connection of your phone within decent range of a cell phone tower is possible in many populated areas right at this moment. However, once you find yourself with a dead cell phone or in the wilderness, your access to the compendium is lost.
Until now. The Wiki Reader boasts a full year of power off of two AAA batteries and no data access requirements of any kind. It’s Wikipedia in your pocket, no strings attached.
Who would have thought that Vox would exist before flying cars?

Very Unfortunate X-Rays

Top 10 Very Unfortunate X-Rays

X-Ray photography has had an enormous impact on the quality of health-care that we receive in modern days. There is no doubt that it makes surgeries for the removal of foreign objects much easier (in the old days Doctors would have to cut and hope for the best). This list includes 10 of the most unfortunate accidents caught on X-Ray film. Warning: some images are very disturbing.

10 Foot X-Ray

This is a Chinese woman with bound feet. You can read more about bound feet on this list.

9 Smoking Gun

Is that a gun in your vagina or are you just happy to see me? Actually, that’s a gun-shaped lighter and a glass crack pipe.

8 Bottle Butt

60 year old man with a bottle up his butt; it was forcibly inserted by thieves.

7 Nail gun

A rather unfortunate nail gun accident.

6 Butter Knife

This is an eleven year old boy with a butter knife lodged in his head.

5 Army Sergeant

United States Army Sgt.stabbed in the head by an insurgent on the streets of East Baghdad.

4 Car keys

This is a 17 month old baby that fell on a set of car keys.

3 Scissors

A pair of scissors caught in a man’s throat. I don’t even want to begin to imagine how they ended up there.

2 Drill Bit

An 18-inch drill bit pierces a man’s eye…

1

A dog in North Carolina that swallowed a fork

10 Poorly Educated But Incredibly Successful People

10 Poorly Educated But

Incredibly Successful People

Education is important—there’s no denying that fact. For the most part, the more schooling you receive, the more successful you will be in your chosen path. In general, people who drop out or receive minimal education are probably headed toward a long, torturous career slinging burgers at a fast food joint. That’s the common perception, at least. But here are ten famously successful people who stand as exceptions to the rule:



10 John D. Rockefeller

Billionaire

Before becoming possibly the richest man in history (taking inflation into account), John Rockefeller was the lowly son of a dodgy con artist and high-school student in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Although he had some education, by the time he was sixteen, Rockefeller decided it was time to shirk school and begin a career—with the goal of earning $100,000 in his lifetime.

It’s pretty safe to say that he accomplished that mission and then some. Rockefeller made his mark in the oil industry, starting Standard Oil and ultimately creating a monopoly on the entire industry. By 1902, Rockefeller was worth $200 million, and before his death he would amass a fortune of more than one billion dollars. And high school was supposed to be important. . . .



9 Horace Greeley

Journalist and Congressman

Unless you’re a big fan of journalism history, there’s a pretty solid chance you've never heard of Horace Greeley, except maybe a fleeting mention here or there. Born in New Hampshire in the early nineteenth century, Greeley would go on to become one of the most influential newspaper men in American history. He also became a Congressman and—I nearly forgot to mention—one of the founding members of the Republican Party.

Greeley did this all without any formal education to speak of. By the age of fifteen, he had already left home to take an apprenticeship with a printer in Vermont. By the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City and begun working for The New Yorker and the New York Tribune. It was his work with the Tribune that made him famous, and he would actually go on to help found a town in Colorado that bears his name. To this day, he is thought of as one of the most influential journalists in history.


8 John Glenn

Astronaut

During the tense space race of the 1950s and 1960s, one man emerged as the face of the American attempt to beat the Soviets into space and, ultimately, to the moon. That man was John Glenn: he became a war hero and one of the most famous astronauts in history, despite being a college dropout. Glenn attended Muskingum College, where he studied science, but when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he dropped out in order to fight in World War II.


7 Steve Jobs

Apple Co-Founder

There have been many great thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and some of them have done incredible things without ever having finished college. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg spring to mind. But perhaps the most influential technological mind of the past century has been Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple.

Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the first successful personal computers, and over the years helped introduce numerous revolutionary products such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. And Jobs did this after attending college for only six months.

Incidentally, Jobs was adopted, and the stipulation set forth by his birth mother only agreed to give him up to Paul and Clara Jobs when they agreed that they would make sure he attended college. Well, mission partly accomplished.



6 Mark Twain

Author and Wit

Arguably the most beloved American writer and humorist in history, Mark Twain gained fame after creating the classic characters of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In fact, his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered by many to be “the great American novel.” Not bad for a guy who had only a minimal formal education, and who was already in the midst of an apprenticeship at the age of eleven.

When Twain was eighteen, he worked as a printer in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, while spending his evenings in the public libraries. That’s as close to a formal education as Twain would come, as he read everything he could get his hands on before becoming, of all things, a steamboat pilot. He continued working in that capacity until the Civil War broke out, and after a brief stint in the Confederate army, he began to travel across the country, writing all the while. Twain serves as clear proof that wit simply cannot be taught.


5 Henry Ford

Industrialist and Entrepreneur

In American history, few people have embodied the notion of the self-made man more than Henry Ford—the man who is best-remembered for almost single-handily creating the US automobile industry. Ford had a limited formal education, having been born on a farm outside of Detroit, where he worked with a father who believed his son would someday take to running the farm himself.

Instead, Ford left home at the age of seventeen and became an apprentice with a machinist in Detroit—a career path he would ultimately take to another level on his way to becoming a wildly rich and successful industrialist. Despite having next to no real education, Ford created the mechanized assembly line—and it wasn't long before Detroit gained the nickname of the Motor City because of his incredible work.



4 William Shakespeare

Poet and Playwright

Now one of the most famous names in history, William Shakespeare produced some of the best-loved works the world has ever known, from Romeo and Juliet to Macbeth. But not much is known about Shakespeare’s early life; in fact, there are not even any records that suggest he ever received much by way of a formal education.

Scholars have suggested that he may have attended the King’s New School, but they also believe—based on some of his writings—that he did not attend school past the age of thirteen. It’s pretty astonishing that a man credited with inventing more than 1700 words was, by all accounts, a middle school drop out.



3 Winston Churchill

Statesman and War Leader

One of the most towering political figures of the twentieth century, a famous wit—and, frankly, a quote machine—Winston Churchill was born into aristocracy. It should therefore come as no surprise that he rose through the ranks to eventually lead the United Kingdom to victory during World War II. What probably does come as a surprise—or at least would, if he wasn't included on a list with this title—is that he achieved this with a limited education.

Churchill, coming from such a good family, was given access to the best education available. That didn't mean he was any good at it, of course. Churchill found education difficult and did very poorly in school, often being punished for his dismal academic record. His military service was also hindered by his poor performance. He had to apply three times to the Royal Military College, and was only accepted after applying for the cavalry rather than infantry because the grade requirements were lower and it didn't involve math. In fairness, though, no one likes math.



2 Abraham Lincoln

US President

Perhaps the most popular US president in history, and a guy who, contrary to popular belief, did not fight vampires, Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth man to lead the USA. He guided the nation through perhaps its most troubling time. But the man who made the Gettysburg Address and effectively ended slavery in the USA—though not through his crippled Emancipation Proclamation—was not even well-educated.

Honest Abe was more or less entirely self-educated, though at an early age he actually had a reputation of being lazy. This did not stop him from starting down a career in politics in his early twenties, and being admitted to the bar after teaching himself the law in his free time. It seems that Lincoln was a political prodigy. And if the stories about him are true, he basically pulled this off through reading by candlelight in his little wood cabin.


1 Albert Einstein

Physicist

Yes: the man whose name now equates to “genius”; who published more than 300 scientific papers; the man behind E=MC2; the man who came up with the theory of relativity; and the man who won a Nobel prize—was in fact a high school dropout. He attempted to get into university, but initially failed the entrance exams.

Einstein eventually made it into college and earned a degree, of course, because men of his staggering intellect always find a way in the end. But the simple fact of the matter is that the greatest mind of the twentieth century was in fact a high school dropout.

Top 10 Bizarre Marriages

Top 10 Bizarre Marriages

In a recent list I illustrated the fallacy of the slippery slope argument, by making reference to the idea that allowing gay marriage would soon lead to people marrying animals and objects. It has been pointed out to me that even without the legalization of gay marriage (in most countries), there have been cases of marriage between people and non-consenting beings. Here are ten examples of weddings where only one partner said ‘I do.’10 A cow

On the island of Bali an amorous 18 year old boy, Ngurah Alit, was discovered in a delicate situation with a neighbor’s cow. The boy was questioned as to what he had been doing; he claimed that he had believed his partner to be a beautiful woman, who flirted with him and led him on.

Wise men have said that every punishment should match the crime: fittingly enough, the boy was sentenced to marry the cow; his bestiality-out-of-wedlock was evidently scandalous to the community. Reportedly, Ngurah Alit fainted under the stress of the wedding. The bride declined to comment. After the wedding, the cow – viewed as unclean – was led away and drowned. Ngurah Al it was also ritually washed, in a mock drowning, to remove the sign.
9 A goat
In 2006, there was a widely reported case of a Sudanese man who married a goat. Like Ngurah above, Charles Tombe was caught in flagrante delicto with the animal and forced by the judgement of a council of village elders to marry her. The council decided to treat the matter as a joke rather than as a serious crime; however, its members insisted that Tom paid a dowry to the owner of the goat.

It would have been within the owner’s rights to take Tombe to the police and report him for bestiality, so by taking the case to the elders, Tombe managed to escape harsher punishment. Tragically, their conjugal bliss was cut short when the wife – ignoring her husband’s advice to the contrary – swallowed a plastic bag and choked to death.


8 The Eiffel Tower
Erika Eiffel, née LaBrie, is the most famous person to have married an inanimate object. In 2007, after an emotional three-year courtship, Erika finally wed the Eiffel Tower. Today she remains happily married, and has since made the most of her fame by founding a web community for others who feel attractions to inanimate objects.

While this is sometimes referred to as objectum-sexuality, or objectively, it is by no means a purely sexual matter. Erika Eiffel, as befits a spouse, feels an emotional attachment to the Eiffel Tower. Mrs Eiffel had previously been in a relationship with the bow she used to compete in archery, called Lance.



7 A dog

Although some marriages have been forced upon people as a punishment, there have been some which arise from genuine love or the animal in question. Joseph Guiso of Toowoomba, Australia, was walking his dog in a park one afternoon when he saw a marriage being conducted there. This experience was the inception of his idea to marry his dog, a female Labrador called Honey.

At a service in the same park, celebrated before friends and family (the bride’s side being rather sparsely represented), he read vows to love her forever. Mr Guiso assured reporters that the marriage would not be consummated. The love of animals, sexual or romantic, is called zoophilia.



6 A truck

Maria Griffin of San Bernadino, California, feared she was asexual for years when she was unable to feel aroused by other people. She claims to have had her first orgasm while thinking about the Chrysler Building.
Over time she developed feelings towards vehicles, Ford Trucks in particular. No longer willing to fake affection for men, she purchased a Ford and married him in a wedding ceremony conducted by a friend. After the wedding, the married couple went on a honeymoon to a campsite. According to Maria, their sex life is healthy and active.



5 The Berlin Wall

Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer (her surname meaning Berlin Wall in German) was the first person to publicly speak of her love for an inanimate object. It was Mrs Berliner-Mauer who coined the term objectum-sexuality. She first fell in love with the Berlin Wall when she saw the barrier on television as a child. Over the years she visited the wall a number of times, and in 1979 she married it.

Due to tight security at the wall, she was unable to express her love physically for the wall, but would return as often as possible. When the wall was destroyed in 1989, and while the rest of Germany celebrated, Mrs Berliner-Mauer mourned for her husband. She has not visited the remaining sections of the wall but keeps models of the wall in his original state in her home to honor him.


4 A CAT

When the fifteen-year-old cat Cecilia fell ill, her owner, Uwe Mitzscherlich, decided to take her to the vet. When Mr Mitzscherlich – a native of Germany – was informed by the vet that Cecilia did not have long to live (she was overweight and suffered from asthma), he decided it was time to formalize his relationship with his cat.

An actress was hired to officiate, and the bride and groom were married. Cecilia wore a white dress for the occasion. Those of you who own cats will understand why Cecilia looks a bit miffed in her wedding photos. I have been unable to discover whether Cecilia was still alive at the time of writing.



3 A pillow

Lee Jin-Gyu married a type of pillow called a Dakimakura, which in English means Dutch Wife. The Dakimakura – often printed with anime images – is used in bed to give one something comforting to hug while sleeping. Lee’s pillow is decorated with an image of his favorite character, Fate Testarossa, who hails from the anime series Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. After spending prolonged periods of time with Miss Testarossa, taking her to restaurants and theme parks, he decided to marry her.

The ceremony took place in 2008, and was performed in the traditional style. Since pillow cases tend to be changed fairly regularly, and since Miss Testarossa will fade with washing, it is difficult to know just how long this marriage will last.



2 A dolphin

Sharon Tendler married the dolphin Cindy in a ceremony held in the Israeli town of Eilat. Despite the dolphin spouse having the name Cindy, this was by no means a lesbian wedding. Cindy was, in fact, the dominant male of a pod of dolphins living in a reef. Apparently falling love with Cindy at first sight, Miss Tendler visited Israel several times a year to see him.

After fourteen years of visits, she finally proposed via Cindy’s trainer. At the ceremony, the groom was flanked by immaculate best-dolphins. Tendler exchanged vows and fish with her new husband, before kissing him. Unfortunately, the ending of this story is not so happy: Cindy has since died of old age.



1 A dead girlfriend
While some of the examples above can be viewed with amusement or shock, even when the feelings involved are genuine, the case of Chadil Daffy is in many ways tragic. Defy, from Thailand, had been dating Sarinya Kamsook for ten years after meeting her at the university. However, when one day she asked him for his hand in marriage, he rebuffed her – citing a heavy work load.

In January 2012, Sarinya was killed in a car accident. According to Deffy’s friends, he decided to marry Sarinya after her death, in order to right the wrong of denying her while she was alive. The ceremony took place at the same time as Sarinya’s funeral. Davy placed a ring on her finger and kissed the bride. His decision to post photos of the wedding on Facebook, along with a video of the ceremony on YouTube, led to accusations that the wedding was a publicity stunt – but his decision does, in fact, seem to have been an honest display of emotion.