Results: Strange But True Part 6

Margaret "Maggie" Dickson was a Scottish woman in the 1720s who was detained on charges of murdering her baby, although she claimed that the child had been stillborn. As the story goes, she was spotted trying to bury the child, then put on trial. Based on questionable medical evidence that the child had been born alive, she was convicted and sentenced to perish by hanging. On September 2, 1724, her execution took place. Afterward, her body was cut down, put in a coffin, and transported back to Musselburgh, to bury. But a strange thing happened on the way to Musselburgh. When the driver resumed his trip after stopping for lunch, he heard strange noises coming from inside Dickson's coffin. When he opened the box, he was stunned to discover that Dickson was still very much alive. Dickson's miraculous survival resulted in a mixed public opinion; some thought she should be hanged again, while others believed she couldn't be punished twice for the same offense. The judges of the High Court agreed with the latter opinion, so Dickson was freed and allowed to live. Dickson - who became known as "Half-hangit Maggie" - went on to live another 60 years and had several other children. The High Court judges, meanwhile, immediately changed the law to read that the punishment would now state "to be hanged until dead." Have you ever heard this story before?

Longyearbyen, a town in Norway on the archipelago of Svalbard, is the northernmost settlement in the world with a population of more than 1,000 people. If the name isn't strange enough, this town comes with some really strange rules. Because hundreds of polar bears live in the area, residents are required to carry and be able to use a high-powered rifle if they leave the settlement. However, guns are not allowed indoors. To protect the Arctic bird population, another law bars anyone in Svalbard from having a cat as a pet. The purchase of alcohol is heavily regulated. Residents have a monthly quota of alcohol they can purchase. All alcohol must be purchased on the archipelago; no tax-free alcohol can be imported from the mainland. Also, no one can be buried in Longyearbyen. The settlement has a small graveyard, but no one has been interred there in approximately 70 years because the soil is permafrost, which means a corpse does not decompose after it is buried. Would you be able to live in a place with these types of laws? The law has given rise to the saying that it's illegal to die in Longyearbyen.

The first roller coaster was invented in Russia. Roller coasters have their origins in a form of ice sledding that became popular in Russia in the 15th century. An adaptation opened in 1784 in St. Petersburg that included carriages on grooved tracks. Pennsylvania's Mauch Chunk Switchback Railroad was possibly the first roller coaster in the U.S.. While the Mauch Chunk train was originally used to haul coal down a steep hill, it soon became obvious people were intrigued by it. By 1844, the railroad was offering passenger rides down the mountain at hair-raising speeds of up to 50 miles per hour, for a few cents. The first roller coaster designed specifically as such was in 1884, at Coney Island. Do you enjoy roller coasters?

A woman who went missing in Iceland in 2014 was found safe and sound by... herself. During a sight-seeing trip, the woman broke off from her tourist group and changed clothes. When she returned to the bus in a different outfit, the rest of her tour group did not recognize her. Then when a description of the "missing person" was offered - Asian, in dark clothing and speaks English well - the woman seemingly also did not recognize the description as of herself, so she began to assist the others in searching. Hours later, the search party finally realized that the woman they were looking for was with them all along, and the search was called off. It seems the woman simply didn't recognize the description of herself, and "had no idea that she was missing." Although this story is 100% true, does it not sound like a totally made up story?