8 Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer who lost part of his nose in a duel, hired a dwarf to be his assistant/pet, and died from a ruptured bladder from holding his pee for too long. Professionally, he is famous for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations.

A smart man with a foolish brain? That’s not even a real thing! But listening to Tycho Brahe’s life story might just give that feeling. Brahe is one of the most prominent scholars in the field of astronomy. He had provided numerous, accurate readings on celestial occurrences. Even though he was a star in his profession, his personal life seems a bit foolish.

When Brahe was studying medicine, he got into a sword duel against a fellow Danish nobleman. Whatever they were fighting for, it resulted in Brahe losing the bridge of his nose! Throughout his life, he had to wear a prosthetic nose that was made out of brass. Why a medical student would agree to a sword duel is beyond one’s understanding!

Another bizarre element of Brahe’s life was him keeping a dwarf person as his assistant and occasionally treating him as his pet. According to historical accounts, the dwarf called “Jeppe” or “Jep” used to sit at Tycho’s feet when he was working and received a morsel now and then from Brahe. Jep also performed as his psychic. Weird, isn’t it?

In 1601, Brahe died on 24 October, 11 days after attending a banquet in Prague. It is said that during the banquet Brahe refused to go to the bathroom out of etiquette. When he reached home, he was no longer able to relieve himself and suffered from excruciating pain. Although preliminary investigations suggested that Brahe died from mercury poisoning, it was later established that a ruptured bladder was the cause. Records show that Brahe wrote his own epitaph, “He lived like a sage and died like a fool.” He got that right! (1, 2)

9 King Peter I of Portugal had the love of his life exhumed from her grave, dressed, and crowned her like a queen and made the entire court pay homage to their new queen. 

King Peter I of Portugal was the son of King Afonso IV. Afonso was an adamant ruler and wanted things to work the way he wanted. So, when Peter fell in love Inês Piras de Castro, Afonso declared this as illegitimate and forbade Peter from marrying her. But Peter claimed that he did it anyways which made the king furious. The king then ordered Inês to be banished from court and confined in a monstery. There, in 1355, he ordered three of his henchmen to take her life.

Two years after this incident, Afonso breathed his last. This made Peter the new king. He soon embarked on a mission to find the killers of his beloved Inês. Two of the killers were caught while the third one escaped. It is said that descendants of the third killer who was not caught celebrate his escape with a picnic every June! Once Peter was satisfied that the killers were brought to justice, he had Inês exhumed. He then ordered the corpse to be dressed as a queen and had her crowned. All the people in his court were made to take her hand and kiss it to show their respect and allegiance to the new queen. The question that echoes from this events is why though? Was it supposed to be an act of love or a slight hint of insanity? (source)

10 Audie Murphy was one of the most decorated soldiers of the WWII. At the age of 19, he managed to single-handedly hold off an entire company of German troops for an hour and then counterattacked and won while being wounded and out of ammunition. When the war ended, Murphy had a 21-year long acting career. 

An injured 19-year-old single-handedly managing to keep the enemy at bay? That’s the story of Audie Murphy. Murphy received many awards for his service in the army during the WWII. During one such occasion, a place known as “The Colmar Pocket” was held by German troops. The troops had been there since November 1944. In  January 1945, Murphy joined with the US platoon that was stationed in Colmar. The German troops attack them, and Murphy was wounded in both his legs. Murphy’s platoon retreated and decided to wait for reinforcements. Also, Murphy was made the commander of the troops.

When the Germans attacked again with an M10 tank, Murphy ordered his men to retreat into the woods. He remained behind alone at his post and kept shooting his M1 carbine at the Germans. Remember, he was wounded in both legs during this time. But he never gave up. He was able to kill a squad of German soldiers who were proceeding towards him by crawling through a ditch. He wounded over 50 Germans! He stopped only after he ran out of ammunition.

He went back to his men and led them back to fight the Germans completely ignoring his own injury. For his bravery on that day, Murphy received the Presidential Unit Citation and was awarded a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster. After the war, Murphy had a successful acting career from 1948 to 1969. He was featured in more than 40 movies and one TV series. (source)