6 An Israeli Air Force aircraft was successfully landed by the pilot even after losing one of the two wings which was the consequence of a collision with another aircraft during a training exercise in the Negev Region, Israel. It’s amazing that he actually pulled off such an impossible thing.

The training session was about “dissimilar air combat” and was being carried out on 1 May 1983 in the Negev Region. The two aircraft that collided were an F-15 D Eagle and the second was A-4 Skyhawk.

The one which lost its right wing was F-15, and the damage was so deep that it sheared off the wing two feet from the root. The pilot, Ziv Nadivi, and the instructor, Yehoar Gal, didn’t realize the severity of the damage at first, but the plane soon started rolling and was getting out of control.

The instructor immediately ordered an ejection, but that was refused by Nadivi. Nadivi attempted to stabilize the plane and regain control. He landed the plane successfully.

He was able to achieve this impossible feat because of the lifting body properties of that particular plane.

Nadivi mentioned that he wouldn’t have attempted such a thing if he had the full knowledge to what extent the plane had been damaged.

The aircraft was repaired and used again in Tel Nof. (1, 2)

7 In the year of 1897, three Swedish young men attempted to reach the North Pole using a hot air balloon. On just the third day of the flight, they crashed onto a pack of ice. They managed to survive for some weeks by hunting and eating polar bears but eventually died. Thirty-three years later, a ship found their bodies along with their journal and camera.

The attempt to reach the North Pole by three Swedish people was named “André’s Arctic Balloon Expedition” and was carried out in 1897. The idea of attempting such an expedition was fueled by patriotic enthusiasm in Sweden and the notion that Sweden, being a northern nation, was falling behind in the race to reach the North Pole.

Andre was the leader among the three young men and the person who proposed the idea of using drag-ropes for steering the balloon, which was totally ineffective. He was so naïve that he didn’t even test the balloon which was imported from Paris.

Andre, Strindberg, and Frænkel lifted off in the month of July, and just within a couple of days of the expedition, the hydrogen ran out and they crashed onto packed ice. They started their journey back south without enough preparations against the Arctic winter of October and could only make it to Kyotoya in Svalbard and died there.

Nobody had a clue about the three men for about 33 years until finally, a ship found their dead bodies along with their equipment and camp.

The event was popularized, and a couple of books have been written around the story portraying Andre as weak and cynical. (1, 2)

8 In the year 1817, a man named Abraham Thornton was charged with rape and murder, and in his defense, Thornton claimed the right to trial by battle which was legal at that time under the law. Even the court approved such a claim, and Thornton was ultimately freed from custody.

It started when Thornton and Mary Ashley met at a dance and checked out together from the place. The very next morning, Mary was found dead in a pit without any traces of evidence of the murderer.

As expected, the public went against Thornton and accused him of rape and murder, but the court carried out the trial, and he was proved to be innocent of the charges against him.

Mary’s brother brought the case back to the surface and appealed to the court, and Thornton was arrested again. This time, Thornton used the right to trial by battle, which had never been revoked by the parliament since medieval times.

Even then, William claimed that the shreds of evidence against Thornton are overwhelming and he cannot exercise such a right. The court ruled to the contrary, and Thornton’s right was approved, but William declined the offer to battle.

As a consequence, Thornton was released from custody, and the right to battle was also abolished legally in 1819. (source)

9 A psychologist from Stanford University along with his associates, faked hallucinations so that they could be admitted to psychiatric hospitals and then acted normally. Each one of them was forced to admit to having a mental disorder and to take antipsychotic drugs to be released from the hospitals.

The experiment is widely popular and is also known as the “Thud Experiment.” Rosenhan conducted the experiment by asking the volunteers to act as pseudopatients, and even he took part in the actual experiment.

Faking hallucinations confirmed their admissions to 12 psychiatric hospitals in five states. After taking admissions into the hospitals, these five people acted normally and said that they were feeling good now, but they were still forced to admit that they were mentally ill and needed to take the prescribed drugs.

They were not released from the hospitals for 19 days and four of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia, a psychological disorder.

The other half of the Rosenhan experiment was conducted when a local administration of the hospital challenged Rosenhan to send pseudopatients, and they would surely identify them. In some weeks, they identified 41 pseudopatients out of 193 patients, but Rosenhan hadn’t sent any.

As concluded by Rosenhan, there is no way of distinguishing sane from insane in the psychiatric faculties. He suggested that the concentrations should be on specific problems and behaviors rather than applying psychiatric labels by community mental health facilities.

The study was published in 1973 in the journal Science. It is considered to be one of the most influential and important studies conducted in the criticism of psychiatric diagnosis. (1, 2)

10 In the 16th century, coffee was so dear to the Turkish culture that a woman had the legal right to divorce her husband if he failed to provide her with enough coffee.

Coffee was introduced in the 14th century to the Near East region and soon became an important part of people’s lives. Constantinople was filled with coffee shops on every street and became the center where people socialized. Political debates and critical ideas were the general points of discussions held around coffee shops.

The love for coffee soon grew exponentially, and a law was introduced that a woman had a legal right to divorce her husband for not providing her with enough coffee. Sounds like a crazy idea but was actually true.

As more and more people started having critical thoughts about politics, in the fear of losing his power, the governor, Khayr Bey, banned coffee and coffee shops in the 16th century. Reacting to this, the Sultan of Cairo started revolting and defending coffee to be sacred and an important part of their culture. (source)