Motorcycle chariot racing is a modern take on one of the most popular sports in ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire.

We’ve featured our fair share of unusual sports here on Oddity Central, but motorcycle chariot racing is undoubtedly one of our most unique entries. Replacing the horses of old with some real horsepower in the form of two motorcycles, this unusual sport is making a comeback in the Land Down Under. Originally invented in the early 1900s in Australia, motorcycle chariot racing eventually spread to Europe and the USA before gradually being banned because of the danger to the riders. However, the adrenaline-fueled sport is currently making a comeback in Australia, thanks to a professional stunt rider.

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A 95-year-old Chinese war veteran recently discovered he had been living for almost eight decades with a bullet lodged in his neck.

After suffering a fall from the balcony of his house in Shandong, China, Zhao He didn’t report any symptoms to his worried family. He didn’t feel any pain, but after a while, the World War 2 veteran did start to feel a slight discomfort in his neck, so his son decided to take him to the hospital for a checkup. After hearing about his fall, doctors recommended an X-ray, to ensure that he hadn’t suffered serious damage to his neck. Only instead of a fracture, the X-ray revealed a foreign object in the man’s neck, which would later be identified as an old bullet.

The 95-year-old man told doctors that he had joined the Chinese army as a teenager and fought through two wars – against the Japanese invaders during World War 2 (1931-1945) and on the side of North Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953). He suffered multiple injuries during his time in the army, but he did not remember anything about taking a bullet to the neck.

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Argentina is known for a lot of things, from tango to its love of football, but you probably didn’t know that it’s also home to the world’s drunkest drivers.

Back in March of this year, Argentinian media reported that a young man in the town of Plottier, Neuquén province, had broken the world breathalyzer record, after scoring an unprecedented 5,79 grams of alcohol per liter of breath when tested by police, after crashing his car in a ditch. Despite suffering minor injuries to his face and arms because of the crash, he refused medical assistance and did not cooperate with the police. However, he would not get to brag about his unusual record for too long, because just last week, a fellow Argentinian broke it again.

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Lerik, a mountainous region in southern Azerbaijan, is famous for being home to an unusually high concentration of centenarians.

Regions where people tend to live longer than average are known as “blue zones”, and we’ve actually covered a couple of them in the past – Japan’s Okinawa island and Ikaria, Greece’s island of longevity. However, there are places famous for the longevity of the local population that are not officially categorized as blue zones. One such place is Lerik, a region in the Talysh Mountains of southern Azerbaijan, famous for its high number of centenarians and even the world’s only Longevity Museum.

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Hum is a picturesque hilltop settlement in Croatia’s Istria region whose main call to fame is being the smallest town in the world.

Located in central Istria, approximately a 2.5 hours drive from Croatia’s capital city of Zagreb, the medieval hilltop town of Hum is home to between 20 and 30 people (21 according to the 2011 national census, and 27 as of 2021). Its origins are shrouded in mystery, but its first mention in historical documents dates back to the year 1102, when it was called Cholm. A bell and watch tower was built in 1552 as part of the town’s defenses, and guards and their families started moving in, but the town never really developed over the centuries, and even today it consists of just three neat rows of medieval houses and two streets.

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A Japanese mother has come under fire for having her 9-year-old daughter undergo double eyelid surgery in order to become more beautiful.

In Japan, plastic surgery is legal for anyone under the age of 18, as long as they have the consent of their parents or a legal guardian, and according to a recent report by VICE Asia, some parents are actually encouraging their children to undergo cosmetic procedures in order to enhance their physical appearance. In a recent episode of its “Deadly Beauty” series, the online magazine featured Rucchi and Micchi, a Japanese mother-daughter duo whose YouTube channel focuses on makeup and plastic surgery. In order to help her 9-year-old daughter become more beautiful, Rucchi had her undergo a blepharoplasty operation, aka double eyelid surgery.

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Often weighing in at more than 10 kilograms (22 lbs), the Flemish Giant is by far the largest rabbit breed in the world. They are also extremely docile creatures and make great pets.

Originally a utility breed raised in Flanders, Belgium for its fur and meat, the Flemish Giant eventually became a show breed, due to its high bone-to-meat ratio. Today, they are considered one of the most docile and tolerant rabbit breeds in the world and can make great pets, if raised correctly. According to breed standards, a well-developed Flemish Giant has a large head, long, erect ears, a long and powerful body, and a nicely rounded rump. Unsurprisingly, the world’s largest rabbit is a Flemish Giant rabbit that weighs 49 lb (22 kg) and measures 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in).

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A team of Volkswagen designers and engineers developed a high-tech office chair that you can drive at a top speed of 12mph (20km/h)

Most high-tech office chairs are either simply waterproof, or stainproof, or are designed at a higher standard in terms of ergonomics. But Volkswagen’s recent take on a high-tech office chair shows just how low the bar sits at the moment. The German car manufacturer designed and built an office chair with a built-in motor and controls, allowing the user to drive it at a respectable top speed of 12mph. And that’s just one of the crazy features built into this one-of-a-kind piece of office furniture.

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A Chinese man recently went viral on social media after he was photographed lighting up and smoking several tobacco cigarettes while running a marathon.

At this point, I think everyone can agree that smoking tobacco isn’t the healthiest thing you can do. But it’s one thing to light up in the comfort of your own home while enjoying a cup of coffee, or on a cigarette break at work, and quite another while running a 42-kilometer marathon. So when photos of a man in his 50’s casually smoking while taking part in the Xin’anjiang Marathon last week went viral, everyone was curious to know his story.

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A South African woman allegedly wired her mouth shut with “slimming wires” in a desperate attempt to lose weight for a breast reduction surgery.

Aviwe Mazosiwe has been trying to lose weight and reach a certain BMI to qualify for breast reduction surgery that she hopes will improve her quality of life. She had managed to lose 12 kilograms with intermittent fasting, but after reaching a plateau on her weight-loss journey, the South African woman decided to take more drastic measures. In June of this year, she had slimming wires fitted on her teeth. These are orthodontic brackets with wires wrapped through them that are attached to the wearer’s teeth to keep the jaw shut. It’s a controversial weight loss device that has attracted a lot of criticism online after Aviwe started sharing her experience on TikTok.

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Peruvian police in Lima recently received international attention for an offbeat operation in which officers disguised as Marvel and DC superheroes dismantled a crime family.

In a video that has been doing the rounds online for about two weeks now, police officers disguised as Captain America, Thor, Spiderman and Cat Woman can be seen listening to the briefing for ‘Operation Marvel’. After listening to a superior explain the details to them, they walk out to a car and drive to the location of their objective, a criminal operation run by the Mariátegui family, who specialized in drug trafficking. The superheroes casually stroll through the streets all the way to their objective and then smash through the door of a house, catching their targets by surprise.

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A Japanese girl sparked controversy recently after revealing that she has been getting plastic surgery since 5th grade and that she has so far spent over 10 million yen ($72,000) to change her appearance.

Zirazyo_ is an up-and-coming Japanese influencer whose shot to fame came when she revealed that her current appearance is the result of plastic surgery. The young girl recently posted a TikTok video where she claims to have had her first cosmetic procedure in the 5th grade (10 or 11 years old), and that she has been altering her appearance ever since, spending over 10 million yen in the process. Zirazyo_ confessed that she has been struggling with criticism for her plastic surgery her entire life, but that she is fighting to break the stigma that plastic surgery is a negative thing.

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The Isles of Scilly Football League is the world’s smallest official football league, consisting of only two teams that play each other seventeen times a season.

As the home of football, England has always been crazy about the team sport, and the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago of more than 140 islands off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, is no exception. Like many other regions of England, the isles have their own football league, but what sets them apart is the size of the league – it consists of just two teams, the Garrison Gunners and the Woolpack Wanderers, that play each other every weekend during a season, as well as in two yearly cups and the traditional ‘Old Men versus the Youngsters’ game played on Boxing Day.

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Japanese convenience store chain Lawson recently launched a rather intriguing new product – flavorless candy that apparently tastes like emptiness.

Whether it be sweet, sour, salty or even spicy, candy has always been associated with a type of flavor. Well, at least until now, because flavorless candy is a thing these days. Lawson, one of Japan’s largest convenience store chains is currently testing a number of products, including the aptly-named Aji no Shinai? Ame (Tasteless? Candy), which apparently tastes like nothing. As you can imagine, the marketed lack of flavor has been raising eyebrows in Japan, and for good reason, after all, can you even imagine sucking on a candy that doesn’t have any taste?

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To celebrate the 175th anniversary of Switzerland’s first railway, a railway company created the world’s longest passenger train ever, a 1.2-mile-long monster snaking through the Swiss Alps.

Switzerland’s mountain railways are regarded as feats of engineering, but they are hardly the best place to attempt a world record for the world’s longest passenger train. And that goes double for Rhaetische Bahn railways. Not only is the alpine terrain itself a challenge, featuring sharp turns and constant gradient changes, but the railway itself is considerably narrower –  just one meter apart, compared to the standard 1.435 meters. In order for the 25 “Capricorn” electric trains (a total of 100 passenger cars) to complete their voyage successfully on the UNESCO World Heritage Albula Line from Preda to Alvaneu in eastern Switzerland, everything had to be perfect.

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