15 More True Stories That Sound Completely Made Up

Fifteen true stories that sound made up. A congressman who went to Washington in 1910 with a plan to fill the bayous of Louisiana with hippos. A working toilet made of solid gold that more than a hundred thousand people queued to use, and that was torn out of an English palace in under five minutes. A volcano that opened beside the only village on the most remote inhabited island in the world, and the islanders who voted to go home anyway. A hollow nickel that fell apart in a Brooklyn paperboy's hand and led, years later, to the Bridge of Spies. A hard drive said to hold eight thousand bitcoin, buried somewhere in a Welsh landfill. A Stradivarius that vanished after a recital in 1980 and turned up thirty-five years later in a locked case. More than three thousand reindeer that set off on an eighteen-month walk across the Arctic and arrived over five years later. A bomber that flew on with nobody aboard and landed itself in the Sahara. A penniless drifter with a rucksack whom a German town welcomed as a prince. A horse that was said to spell, and the man born into slavery who trained him with kindness. The unknown man on Somerton Beach, and the name DNA may finally have given him. The woman who invented the game that became Monopoly, and meant it as a warning. A rocket packed with letters that blew up on a Scottish beach. A dog named Pickles who found the stolen World Cup under a hedge. And a newspaperman who crossed the Atlantic alone in a boat thirteen and a half feet long. Every story is documented. Where the popular version goes further than the record, we say so. Settle in, this one runs about an hour and fifty minutes. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:37 The Hippos That Never Came to Dinner 7:57 The Toilet Made of Gold 14:54 The Island That Went Home 21:58 The Nickel That Fell in Half 29:17 The Hard Drive in the Landfill 36:16 The Violin in the Locked Case 43:36 The Reindeer That Took the Long Way 50:59 The Bomber That Landed Itself 58:03 The Prince With the Rucksack 1:04:56 The Horse That Spelled His Name 1:11:55 The Man on Somerton Beach 1:19:32 The Woman Who Invented the Landlord's Game 1:26:45 The Mail That Went Up in Smoke 1:34:02 The Dog Who Found the World Cup 1:41:11 The Little Boat That Crossed the Ocean The visuals in this film are AI-generated reconstructions made for illustration. They are not archival footage, except for the historical photographs, prints and maps listed below. Photos, prints and maps (public domain unless marked CC0), via Wikimedia Commons: House Office Building, Washington, D.C. — Architect of the Capitol Hippopotamus, 19th-century engraving — Rijksmuseum, CC0 New Iberia, Louisiana — Waud, Alfred R. (Alfred Rudolph) HMS Hampshire, the cruiser lost with Lord Kitchener — William Frederick Mitchell Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire — Jvhertum Vincent van Gogh, Landscape with Snow, 1888 — Vincent van Gogh The hollow nickel, FBI evidence photo — Federal Bureau of Investigation A Jefferson nickel — Jaclyn Nash) Glienicke Bridge, Berlin-Potsdam — Torsten Henning Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Newport, South Wales A laptop hard drive — Tookapic, CC0 A landfill site — Ropable A violin by Antonio Stradivari — Antonio Stradivari, CC0 Piotrkowska Street, Łódź Warsaw Philharmonic Hall Longy School of Music, Cambridge, Mass. — Daderot, CC0 Mackenzie River Delta, Canada — Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. G Nome, Alaska Brooks Range, northern Alaska — NPS The wreck of Lady Be Good, Libyan desert, 1959 — United States Air Force A B-24 Liberator bomber — Richard R. Ganczak (1924—2014). Ganczak served radio operator and later a bombar Lady Be Good B-24 Liberators in Libya, 1943 — National Archives at College Park Lake Linden, Michigan — Detroit Publishing Co. The court theatre, Gotha — Zedler (18..-19..?). Photographe Vogel Heidelberg — Detroit Publishing Co. Cologne main railway station Beautiful Jim Key — Rogers, Albert R. Tennessee Centennial Exposition, Nashville, 1897 — Henderson Litho. Co Madison Square Garden, New York — The Arts Publishing Corporation The Landlord's Game patent, 1904 — U.S. National Archives The Boardwalk, Atlantic City The South Downs above Rottingdean — Hassocks5489, CC0 A replica of the Jules Rimet Trophy — Abel Lafleur Wembley Stadium, London — Campbell Gray (credited) Falmouth, Massachusetts — Tichnor Bros. Inc., Boston, Mass. The liner Queen Mary Maps: Natural Earth, public domain. Full links: see the pinned comment. Which story surprised you the most? Tell us in the comments, and subscribe for more true stories that happened, somehow. #history #truestories #documentary