They Tried To Smash Cities With Bats, Properly Daft
In WWII the US actually trained bats to carry tiny incendiaries so they'd roost in wooden houses and start fires - and it worked well enough to be terrifying.Read More 
The Dead Bloke, a Rubaiyat and a Code No One Can Crack
Found on a beach in 1948: a dead fella, a torn bit of poetry and a string of letters like someone tried to hide a crossword answer.Read More 
Point Nemo: Middle Of Nowhere Where Astronauts Are Your Neighbours
There is a spot in the South Pacific so lonely the closest people are the ones circling overhead, and even ships treat it like a skip for dead satellites.Read More 
133 Days Adrift, Ate Seagulls, Still Sound
Proper mad: a fella floated for 133 days, drank rain, ate birds and turned a bit of canvas into a wardrobe and kept his humour.Read More 
Some Git Named An Asteroid After His Cat Mr Spock
Proper daft: there really is an asteroid called 2309 Mr Spock, and no, it wasn't christened for Captain Kirk - it was named after a moggy.Read More 
In China You Need Permission To Be Reborn
They actually make Tibetan monasteries get state sign-off before announcing a 'return' - paperwork for your next life.Read More 
That pistol shrimp that makes tiny explosions
There is a wee shrimp that snaps its claw so fast it makes a bubble that pops like a mini gunshot and stuns fish.Read More 
Mirror-touch synesthesia: when someone else's hug is your hug
Some people literally feel other folk being touched - like their skin is an echo - and it wrecks their bus journeys.Read More 
They Hung Babies Outside Windows And Called It Fresh Air
Back when folk thought dangling your nipper outside the flat was common sense, so they bolted a wire cage to the sill and called it childcare.Read More
This Bloke Called Himself Emperor And Shops Took His Money
He went broke, crowned himself 'Emperor Norton I' in 1859, printed his own banknotes and San Francisco treated him like a celebrity - proper daft, and lovely.
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