World’s Strangest

In honor of today’s Olympic marathon, here’s a look back at the origin of the race, plus an explanation of the whole “.2″ business. Olympic Marathon, 1908 London Games/Getty Images In 490 BC, a soldier named Pheidippides supposedly ran from the battlefield at Marathon to the city of Athens to alert the troops of a Greek victory. [...]

This article originally appeared in mental_floss magazine. If you’re in a subscribing mood, here are the details. by Ethan Trex Earlier this week, airport authorities in Wellington, New Zealand, caught a smuggler as he tried to slip onto a flight. The German citizen wasn’t smuggling drugs, guns, or cash, though. His cargo was a bit more alive: [...]