“The Odds Were One In Ten Quadrillion”: 23 Ridiculously Unlikely Things That Actually Happened

1.

During World War II, a bear — yes, a bear! — served as a private in the Polish Army.

2.

In 2001, red-colored rain — dubbed “blood rain” — fell in Kerala, India. It frightened locals, some of whom postulated it foretold the end of the world.

3.

Former Oakland A’s slugger Khris Davis hit exactly .247 every year for four consecutive seasons (2015–18). The odds of this happening are 1 in 100 million.

4.

Speaking of long odds, in 2002, 51-year-old electrician Mike McDermott won the lotto TWICE in one year — and to make things even more improbable…he did it both times using the same numbers!

5.

Want to hear about even LONGER odds? Park ranger Roy Sullivan survived getting struck by lightning not once, not twice, but seven times.

6.

There was an earthquake that was so massive it not only created a new lake, but made the Mississippi River temporarily turn against itself and flow backwards.

8.

In 1971, a then 17-year-old Dr. Juliane Diller was flying in a plane over Peru when it was hit by lightning and broke up in the sky. She fell for almost two miles — still strapped into her seat — before landing in the rainforest below, somehow not dying. She was the flight’s sole survivor.

9.

Bizarrely, one month later, Vesna Vulović — a 22-year-old flight attendant — was working a flight that exploded from a terrorist’s bomb. Somehow, she fell 33,338 feet (more than six miles!) to the ground and survived.

10.

In 1954, Ann Hodges became the only known person to be hit by a meteorite when it crashed through the roof of her farmhouse in Sylacauga, Alabama, and hit her on the upper thigh and hand. She survived with only minor injuries.

11.

Aron Ralston was climbing alone in Utah in 2003 when a boulder fell and pinned down Ralston’s right arm, trapping him in a slot canyon.

12.

An engineer for Mitsubishi named Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived being in the blast zones for both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 1945.

13.

Instagram had only 13 employees when Facebook bought it for a whopping for $1 billion.

15.

A woman named Violet Jessop survived the sinking of both the RMS Titanic and its sister ship, the Britannic.

16.

Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words in the English language.

17.

In 1977, a radio telescope at Ohio State University picked up a 72-second burst of unexplained radio signals from space that still baffles scientists today.

18.

Two NFL quarterbacks playing for the same team suffered the same injury under nearly identical circumstances on the same date exactly 33 years apart:

19.

World War I was triggered by something as benign as a driver making a wrong turn.

20.

To calm the public’s fears about the strength of the Brooklyn Bridge, famed circus owner P.T. Barnum led 21 elephants across the bridge to prove its stability.

21.

In 1883, the Krakatoa volcano erupted creating what is believed to be the loudest sound in history. It was so loud it was heard 3,000 miles away.

22.

Legendary writer and humorist Mark Twain was born during Halley’s Comet in 1835 and predicted he would die during its return in 1910 — which he did.

23.

And lastly: NASA’s Voyager Probes became the first human-made objects to leave the solar system.