Frank Tavares was born a man in the Dominican Republic, but for 22 years of his life, he lived as Sister Margarita in two different convents, posing as one of the nuns there without anyone suspecting anything.

The unusual story of “nun-man”, as Frank came to be known following his shocking reveal, began when he was only four years old. He and his family were involved in a serious car accident that claimed the lives of his parents. His grandparents were too poor and ill-equipped to deal with a child, so he was placed in the care of nuns at a Dominican convent. Tavares recalls that, as a young boy, his genitals were so small that even he had trouble finding them, which is probably why he was raised as a girl at the convent. He wore girl’s clothes, adopted the habits of the nuns there, and became fully engaged in the daily activities of his new home. It wasn’t until age seven that he realized he was a man, but he continued living as a girl, to avoid being cast out.

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Russian media outlets have been hailing a Russian soldier as a hero for allegedly continuing to fight in the Kursk region for a week after getting shot in the head.

The unnamed man, reportedly a member of the 155th Marine Brigade of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, was fighting Ukrainian troops in Kursk when he got shot. At the time, his helmet was blown off of his head, but he thought the bullet must have ricocheted from it. He developed a hematoma above his right eye which eventually caused his eye to swallow shut, but he just went about his business, thinking the swelling would heal on its own. It was only after suffering another shrapnel-related injury that the man ended up in the hospital and learned that the bullet that had knocked his helmet off had actually pierced his skull and was lodged in his brain.

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An Italian man has been struggling to adjust to daily life following a hit-and-run accident that put him in a coma and ultimately erased 39 years worth of memories, including his own family.

Imagine living in the 1980s and then suddenly being transported to present day. Things like smartphones, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, the internet or social media must seem like real-life science fiction, and everyone you used to know is now either gone or much older. It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie, but it’s the life story of Luciano d’Adamo, an Italian man who lost the last 39 years of memories following a hit-and-run accident in 2019. After waking up from a coma a few days later, he was convinced he was 24 years old and waiting to be married to his 19-year-old fiance; he didn’t recognize the old woman claiming to be his wife, the 30-something man calling him ‘dad’, or the old man staring back at him from the mirror.

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A 46-year-old Russian man was recently rescued after spending 67 days drifting through the icy waters of the Russian Far East in an inflatable raft.

On August 9, Mikhail Pichugin, his 49-year-old brother Sergey, and his 15-year-old nephew Ilya set out for Sakhalin Island from the far eastern Khabarovsk region in an inflatable raft. A few days later, their families announced their disappearance, and a search and rescue operation was mounted using planes and helicopters. All efforts to locate the inflatable boat failed, and with each passing day, hopes of finding any of the three men alive faded. By September, the chances of finding the boat had plummeted towards zero, but on Monday, October 14, the inflatable boat was spotted in the Sea of Okhotsk, about 1,000km (670 miles) from where it had set off 67 days prior. Miraculously, one of the three men was still alive.

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Helio da Silva, a retired business executive from Brazil, single-handedly planted over 41,000 trees in his hometown of Sao Paolo over the last two decades.

Flying over the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paolo, it’s tough to miss the 3.2-kilometers-long and 100-meter-wide green strip of trees wedged between two of the city’s busiest roads. It is known as Tiquatira Linear Park, and it is the work of a single man who worked tirelessly for over 20 years in order to transform a previously dilapidated area into an actual jungle within the urban jungle that is Sao Paolo. Originally from the town of Promissao, about 500km from Sao Paulo, Helio da Silva was a successful business executive for many years, but after retiring, he took it upon himself to transform the degraded banks of the Tiquatira River into a green oasis for his community. He started planting trees there in 20023 and hasn’t stopped since.

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Enzo, a 4-year-old boy from Aubervilliers, France, miraculously survived a 43-meter fall from his 16th-floor apartment with only a scratch and no fractures, and no one understands how.

The unusual incident took place on May 26, in a high-rise apartment complex in Aubervilliers, central France. Enzo, a 4-year-old boy diagnosed with autism was in his room when his father, Ji, heard him crying. As usual, he hurried to check on his son and calm him down, but as he tried to enter Enzo’s room, he realized that the door was locked. This had never happened before, and the parents suspect that the boy accidentally locked himself inside which caused him to panic. By the time Ji managed to break down the door, Enzo’s crying had stopped and the room seemed empty. Seeing the window open, the man horrifyingly realized that he was too late.

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A Vietnamese woman has been dubbed a “sleepless mutant” because of her alleged ability to shun sleep completely. She claims to have remained awake continuously for the last three decades.

49-year-old Nguyen Ngoc My Kim is known as “the seamstress who never sleeps” in her home province of Long An, a nickname she gladly accepts because it apparently suits her. Every time Miss Kim’s reputation attracted the attention of the media, she confirmed that she hadn’t slept in several decades, adding that the complete lack of sleep hadn’t affected her health at all. However, the Vietnamese seamstress has always been quick to point out that she wasn’t born with the ability to function without sleep, she conditioned herself to stay up late ever since she was a little girl. At first, she would lose sleep because she loved reading late into the night, and later, when she started working as a seamstress, she worked late in order to complete her orders. At one point, she didn’t feel the need to sleep at all, so she didn’t.

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Hosun, a South Korean dog who suffered severe injuries and was thought to be dead after being hit by a truck, gained legendary status after crawling out of its grave and walking home.

Hosun the “miracle dog” first made news headlines in South Korea six years ago, after going through a terrible car accident and coming back from the dead. She was only a four-month-old puppy when she was hit by a truck close to his owners’ home in the city of Yeongcheon, and her injuries were so severe that a neighbor who found her on the side of the road thought her dead. The man buried Hosun in a shallow grave in a nearby field and delivered the bad news to her owners when they came home. However, four days later, Hosun’s owners heard an animal’s wailing coming from a roadside ditch near their home and were shocked to find their beloved pet, terribly injured, but alive.

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23-year-old Ganesh Baraiya is living proof that nothing is impossible. Despite facing discrimination because of his short stature, he managed to become the world’s shortest doctor.

Ganesh Baraiya was born in the Talaja Thaluka area of Gujarat, India, and faced adversity from a very young age. He was born normal, but at the age of four, his parents noticed that his head was outgrowing his body, so they took him to a doctor. They learned that the boy suffered from an incurable condition and there was nothing anyone could do. Wanting to help her son, Ganesh’s mother put a tub-like helmet on his head to prevent it from growing and give his body a chance to catch up. In school, he was often ridiculed because of his large head and short stature, but he also had friends who stuck by him and he was able to focus on his studies.

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Frank Hayes is believed to be the only jockey in history to win an official horse race while dead. He suffered a heart attack while competing at New York’s Belmont Park in 1923.

According to Frank’s mother, the young stable boy and apprentice jockey had always been fond of hoses and dreamed of one day becoming a full-time race jockey, so when finally given the chance to prove himself in a 2-mile, 12-jump race at Belmont Park, he leaped at the opportunity. Frank Hayes loved training horses, and one of his favorites was Sweet Kiss, a 7-year-old unremarkable mare that wasn’t well thought of even by her owners. She had 20-1 odds in the big race and wasn’t expected to pull off anything extraordinary, but Frank believed she could win, so Sweet Kiss’ owners gave him the chance to prove it. This would be their only race together, but one that would be remembered a century later.

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A Florida scuba diver claims he has been best friends with a 15-foot-shark named Emma for almost 23 years now, describing her more like a playful dog than an apex predator.

Jim Abernethy and Emma first met in 2001 when he removed a fishing hook from her mouth, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. Every time Jim goes into the water in the area of Tiger Beach, in the Bahamas, she comes around and rubs heads with him as a sign of affection. It’s not the kind of behavior most people expect from a huge, 15-foot-long tiger shark that could easily tear a human apart, and that’s exactly what makes Emma the perfect poster girl in Jim Abernathy’s ongoing mission to change people’s perceptions of sharks.

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Maleesha Kharwa grew up in Mumbai’s infamous Dharavi slum, but thanks to a chance encounter with an American actor, she became one of India’s most popular teenage models.

At just 15 years of age, Maleesha Kharwa has already graced the covers of international fashion magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan, become the face of a luxury skincare brand, and amassed over 300,000 followers on Instagram alone. She is one of the most recognizable faces in India, and it’s almost impossible to believe that only three years ago she was just another girl in the slums of Mumbai. It was only thanks to a lucky encounter with Step Up 2: The Streets and Grey’s Anatomy actor Robert Hoffman that her life changed drastically and she got the chance to live out her childhood fantasy of one day becoming a fashion model.

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12-year-old Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau has become the talk of the town in his native New Zealand after winning a national golf tournament despite having played just three rounds of golf his entire life.

Playing with borrowed clubs and wearing basketball sneakers, Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau managed to score an impressive 87 Stableford points during his three nine-hole rounds at this year’s Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools (AIMS) Games. His feat is even more impressive when you consider that he had previously only played three full rounds of golf his whole life. A few months back, his teacher-aide noticed that the 12-year-old autistic boy loved swinging a stick all the time, so he suggested he tried golf. Bayleigh said ‘ok’, and despite having only completed three rounds of golf, he managed to beat everyone at the recent AIMS Games and take home the gold.

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An Australian sailor and his loyal dog were recently rescued after surviving two months adrift in the Pacific Ocean by eating raw fish and drinking rainwater.

54-year-old Tim Shaddock and his dog Bella left Mexico for French Polynesia back in April, but a few weeks into their 6,000 km journey, Tim’s catamaran was severely damaged in a storm, and they were left with no way to sail. The storm also knocked out all the electronics, so the Sydney-based man had no way of contacting anyone for help, or even cooking his supplies. The last time Shaddock saw dry land was in early May as he sailed out of the Sea of Cortez and into the Pacific during a full moon. He and his canine have been drifting in the Pacific ever since, taking shelter from the sun under a canopy, eating raw fish, and drinking rainwater.

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An Indonesian fisherman claims to have shared a friendship with a four-meter-long saltwater crocodile for over 20 years and calls the reptile part of the local community.

59-year-old Ambo, a fisherman from Bontang City, in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan, has become somewhat of a celebrity in his country because of his unusual friendship with a giant saltwater crocodile named Rizka. The giant reptile has been a constant part of Ambo’s life for the past 26 years, ever since he first laid eyes on her in the waters of Pupuk Kaltim. She was only about one meter in size back then, and he didn’t pay much attention to her as she swam past his boat, but when he noticed that she had followed him home, Ambo grabbed some food and tossed it in the water. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship spanning 26 years and who knows how many more going forward.

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