France - Till Death Don't Us Part(01 of11)
Open Image ModalAs befits the spiritual home of romance, in France it's never too late to tie the knot. In fact, you don't even need to be still alive. Each year around 20 blushing brides (and bridegrooms) marry recently-deceased ex-partners. Some opt for full-blown ceremonial, complete with bridal gown, bouquet and champagne reception (although the honeymoon can admittedly be tough for even the most ardent). Others are far more discreet, keeping it even from friends and most family. But all have to be determined as permission can only be granted by the president (who turns down a further 30 or so requests each year). The unusual facility began in 1959, when President de Gaulle was moved to change the law upon the pleas of a young woman who had just lost her fiancé in a dam burst and, in rule-bound France, can give even practical benefits as it allows a posthumously born child to take the father's name. (credit:Wikimedia)
Mexico - Spirit of Discovery(02 of11)
Open Image ModalMexican scientists have recently invented a process to turn tequila into pure diamond. All that's required is to heat the liquor to 1500 °F, throw in a few fancy physics tricks, and - voilà - you end up with shimmering sheets of the gem. Apparently, it's down to tequila having exactly the right proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and the good news is that, because the high temperatures burn all the impurities away, even the roughest rotgut will do. Still, the scientists are reportedly determined to test as many of the 2,000 tequila varieties as they can, just to make 100% sure. (credit:Wikimedia)
Japan - Lend me your ears (and noses). (03 of11)
Open Image ModalIn 1992 the Japanese government relinquished possession of 20,000 Korean noses it had been holding on to for almost 400 years. Stored in the Okayama Nose Tomb, the pickled noses were originally brought to Japan as war trophies by samurai, paid a bounty for each nose they hacked off. Although the noses have been returned, a further 75,000 Korean ears remain--shipped over in barrels of brine and now deposited within Kyoto's Mimizuka Ear Mound. Needless to say, the abducted appendages form a major bone, or more precisely cartilage, of contention in Japanese-Korean relations. (credit:Wikimedia)
Australia - Trippy Skippies(04 of11)
Open Image ModalCrop circles are a mainstay of urban myth. Some say aliens are behind the phenomenon, others hailstorms or pranksters. But in Tasmania the perpetrators have been revealed to be pot-chewing wallabies. The Australian island state is the source of half the world's legal opium and, during a 2009 review of security, officials found that wallabies were sneaking into the opium poppy fields at night to eat the poppy heads. Since opium has precisely the same effect on marsupials as humans, such consumption soon leads to the wallabies bouncing round and round in circles, flattening poppy stalks as they go, before wandering off to crash out in a stupor. (credit:Wikimedia)
Central African Republic - Jail Spells(05 of11)
Open Image ModalNever, ever take a pair of scissors to your clothes while visiting the Central African Republic, however dire your sartorial emergency. Snipping clothing is said to be one of the surest signs of a sorcerer, and in a country where 40% of all criminal prosecutions are for sorcery any such accusations will not be taken lightly. While fully 60% of all women prisoners are doing time as witches, judges acknowledge that evidence against them is often slight. But defendants often choose to 'confess' anyway rather than face the lynch mob waiting outside. For those that do decide to tough it out, one defense lawyer has given the following advice: 'Try not to look shifty and never cast spells inside the court.' (credit:Wikimedia)
U.S.A. - Make Love AND War(06 of11)
Open Image ModalIn 1994, a research lab operated by the U.S. Air Force requested $7.7m to pursue the creation of a range of highly unconventional chemical weapons. One proposed project was to douse enemy combatants in a sort of reverse bug spray that would attract large numbers of angry bees (from hives that Special Forces would have conveniently secreted nearby). Another was to create a halitosis-inducing artillery shell that would make exposed personnel 'stink badly' for months afterwards. However, the device of which Dr. Strangelove would surely have been most proud, was the so-called 'gay bomb', a powerful aphrodisiac that would somehow also induce 'homosexual behavior.' Thankfully none of these proposals saw the light of day (as far as the Pentagon is letting on) and the scientists in question have long since gone back to their day jobs building space planes and battle lasers. (credit:Wikimedia)
Liechtenstein - A Smile to Die For(07 of11)
Open Image ModalDespite being smaller in area than Washington, D.C., the Alpine principality of Liechtenstein has for decades been the world's largest producer of false teeth (as well as sausage casings). Both of these are technologies about which you would arguably do well not to enquire too closely. But, particularly if your falsies are getting a bit long in the tooth, you might wish to know that, until the 1980s, denture manufacturers routinely added a pinch of depleted uranium left over from the fabrication of nuclear fuel rods to give their products an authentically lifelike glowing smile. (credit:Wikimedia)
Syria - Dumbo's Daddy(08 of11)
Open Image ModalIn the Classical World the non plus ultra of battlefield weaponry was the Syrian war elephant. Hannibal had his own personal beast when he marched on Italy, while the lone elephant Julius Caesar used to force a crossing of the Thames at what is now London may also have been of Syrian stock. Feared around the Mediterranean, Syrian elephants formed a distinct (and now extinct) subspecies known both for gargantuan size and extreme ferocity. Nevertheless, the Romans eventually came up with a countermeasure in the form of the 'war pig': a diminutive porker whose terrified high-pitched squeals drove the lumbering behemoths crazy. (credit:Wikimedia)
Mongolia - Grandaddy to the World(09 of11)
Open Image ModalGenghis Khan is generally associated with having pillaged and burnt a greater proportion of the world's surface than any other man who has ever lived. But the Mongol's Mongol (Mongolia recently erected a 120 feet tall statue honoring him) may also have been the world's most successful father. This is not, of course, in any namby pamby househusband sort of sense. Rather DNA studies suggest that Genghis may have 16 million direct male descendants alive today, compared to the statistical norm of 20 for his 13th century peers. This makes him 800,000 times more productive than average and almost certainly history's ultimate alpha male. (credit:Wikimedia)
Bhutan - The Year of Living Dangerously(10 of11)
Open Image Modal81 is considered a risky age for anyone living in Bhutan - and not just for the obvious reason. Although to do so at 80 or 82 is fine, dying while 81 is regarded as quite taboo. Fortunately, if you really can't wait, there is one remedy: your family must hang your body upside down from the ceiling and wait until the next Bhutanese New Year, after which it's safe to burn you. Anything else will bring bad luck upon your family and quite possibly the rest of your village too. (credit:Wikimedia)
Antarctica - The Last Lenin(11 of11)
Open Image ModalThe idly curious may wonder what lies at the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility - the remotest spot in Antarctica, the world's remotest continent. Given the emptiness of this frozen land mass sporting a winter population of only 1,000 across an area half as big again as the U.S.A., one might reasonably conclude that the answer would be nothing but snow and ice. In fact, if you made the journey you would find a solitary bust of Lenin staring resolutely north to Moscow. The head is all that remains visible of a 1958 Soviet research station, the rest of which has been entirely buried underneath the ice plateau. (credit:Wikimedia)