A typhoon destroyed Kublai Khan's fleet of more than 4000 ships and 140,000 men. Next to D-Day, this was the largest naval invasion force ever assembled.

Did you know comedian Steve Martin was also a master illusionist?

In 1913 a German acrobat named Otto Witte was crowned King of Albania...or so he claimed.

The quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra. The species went extinct in 1883, but there's a controversial effort to breed it back into existence.

In 1984, President Reagan improvised a Cold War joke that caused at least one division of the Soviet Army to go on alert.

In 1909 a wireless operator named T.D. Haubner sent the first SOS call from an American steamship. The incident happened off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

In 1991, Mari Huff and some fellow members of the Ghost Research Society were in the Bachelor's Grove Cemetery in Illinois when they captured an eerie image of someone or something sitting on a tombstone.

Otto Lilienthal, the aviation pioneer, was the first person to successfully design, build and fly a working hang glider.

Josef Carl Engressia, Jr made a huge name for himself as one of the pioneers in the world of Phone Phreaks.

In 1679, French explorer Robert de La Salle set sail on a 45-ton barque called Le Griffon. It became the first sailing ship to cross Lake Erie and Lake Huron.

In 1628, Johannes Junius, the Mayor of Bamberg was burned alive for being a witch. He was one of hundreds of people who were executed in Germany as part of the infamous Bamberg witch trials.

Jeanne Calment lived for 122 years. Hers is the longest verified human life on record.

For 13 bloody years, Jeanne de Clisson used her Black Fleet to wreak havoc on French ships in the English Channel.

She is most remembered as Mama Cass, the powerful voice that dominates many of the hits sung by the sixties pop quartet, The Mamas & the Papas.