This photo is from World War II showing a Tiger 1 tank having been shot through its
barrel; a shot that takes unbelievable luck.
On the side, German soldiers analyse the tank barrel and stand in complete awe at its uncanny
damage.
They look in a daze of amazement, the Tiger I has been rendered out of service in the
most despicable of ways.
You may think this has a one in a million chance of happening, but you'd be surprised
to know that, during tank engagements, they happen more often than thought as the following
pictures show.
However, what is the chance of two bullets colliding mid air?
Well, this photo depicts exactly that.
A miracle never commonly seen, two bullets from the Ottoman and Entente powers seemingly
collided in mid air, being found in the aftermath of the Battle of Gallipoli.
There is lots of conversation of whether it was actually a mid air collision, which is
entirely possible, however there is also the possibility a stray bullet hit an ammunition
cartridge on a soldier.
They are however, equally interesting and unique.
This aircraft was involved in mid-air collision and it became a subject of one of the most
famous photographs of World War II.
In February of 1943, a Boeing B17 Flying Fortress, named "All American", was part of a mission
to bomb the docks at the port of Tunis, in order to cut the supply chain to the German
and Italian armies operating in Tunisia.
On their return flight, a German fighter "Messerschmitt", lost control while attacking the formation
and it collided mid-air with the American bomber, cutting diagonally through the fuselage,
and causing considerable damage.
However, the robust design and construction that made the Flying Fortress a legend, allowed
the bomber to return safely to its home base in Algeria.
None of the ten men aboard were injured.
The airplane was under the command of the pilot, Lieutenant Kendrick Bragg.
The aircraft was later repaired and returned to service.
Adam Rainer, an Austrian-born man, is the only person in recorded history to have been
both a dwarf and a giant over the course of his life.
He is believed to have suffered a medical disorder known as acromegaly, a condition
in which the body produces too much growth hormone.
Rainer, on the other hand, was always short, from birth to adulthood.
Standing barely 4 feet 8 inches tall at the age of 19, he was denied admission into the
army in 1918 because he was officially considered a dwarf.
Rainer experienced a tremendous growth surge a few years later as a result of acromegaly,
which was caused by a benign tumour.
By the age of 33, he had grown to a height of more than 7 feet.
He went from a shoe size 10 at the age of 19 to a size 20 three years later.
In the 1930s doctors removed the tumor which slowed down the rate of growth, however, his
health continued to deteriorate.
He was unable to stand on his own and eventually lost both his eyesight and hearing.
At time of his death in 1950 at the age of 51, Rainer had reached a final height of 234
cm or 7 feet 8 inches.
This photo became known as "Burst of Joy" and it depicts Lieutenant Colonel Robert Stirm,
being reunited with his family on March 17th, 1973, after spending more than five years
in captivity as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
Stirm was a fighter pilot who was shot down over Hanoi, on October 27th, 1967.
He endured nearly 6 years of torture and dreadful nights and days, but his strong will to live
kept him alive.
He had four children and a wife waiting at home.
Finally, he was released as part of "Operation Homecoming", together with nearly 600 other
American Prisoners of War.
However, contrary to appearances, the reunion was an unhappy one for Stirm.
The same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a letter from his wife of 18
years, Loretta, informing him that their marriage was over.
He learned that Loretta had been with other men throughout his captivity, receiving marriage
proposals from three of them.
They divorced in 1974 and Loretta remarried, but Stirm was still ordered by the courts
to provide her with 43% of his military retirement pay.
Stirm was later promoted to full Colonel and retired from the Air Force in 1977.
Loretta died on August 13, 2010 from cancer.
All four children have "Burst of Joy" hanging in their homes, apart from Stirm himself for
whom all of this was more complicated and bittersweet.
This is Annette Kellerman, an Australian professional swimmer, actress and writer, who promoted
a woman's right to wear a one-piece bathing suit, which were controversial at the time.
Women were expected to wear instead the then-accepted dress and pantaloon combinations when swimming.
Allegedly, Kellerman was arrested at Revere Beach sometime in 1907, for public indecency,
while wearing one of her suits.
Though the story remains unconfirmed.
Her one-piece suits known as "Annette Kellermans" became very popular and were the first step
towards the modern women's swimwear we see today.
I honestly believed this photograph of a Zebra carriage was somehow manipulated in Photoshop.
However, it turns out that people in the 19th and early 20th century really did try to domesticate
Zebras.
In this picture, Mr. Hardy, a well-known horse rider and trainer, is riding a Zebra carriage
through the streets of London in 1898.
While it has been claimed that it is possible to tame individual zebras, attempts to domesticate
zebras have been mainly ineffective, and they have been abandoned.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was getting rid of all their communist statues.
But in the city of Odessa, a local artist converted the last remaining statue into Darth
Vader.
It even had a free Wi-Fi hotspot around the statue.
This picture has been taken in 1947 of 1 year old Farrokh Bulsara and his nanny in Zanzibar.
25 years later the world would know him as Freddy Mercury.