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Warning, what you're about to see could be disturbing to some viewers.

Viewer discretion is advised.

What if I told you there's a game so brutal, it's fair play to electrocute

opponent?

As you are running, your opponent can run up to you and tase you.

Guys are getting tased 30 to 40 times a game.

Or you could enter a dangerous downhill foot race against a well -aged rival.

The wheel of cheese is moving at 70 miles an hour.

People break legs, blown out knees, head injuries.

How about staging a friendly competition that's less of a ball game, more of a

head game?

They take a freshly severed head, attach it to a rope, and then attach that to a

pole. It's brutal.

These are the games so strange, they are truly unbelievable.

For more than a thousand years, people have been facing off in perhaps the

simplest, yet deadliest game of all time, the duel.

But for two Frenchmen in the early 1800s... The traditional take -a -few

turn -and -fire format lacks the je ne sais quoi they're looking for.

So we're in Napoleonic France, 1808, in Paris.

We have a famous dancer at an opera house, a gorgeous lady, Mademoiselle

Thierry. And two gentlemen are desperately in love with her. So one

Monsieur Grand Prix, decides to get her an apartment in the city so that he can

visit her there. But this plan backfires when he realizes that he's not the only

gentleman caller visiting her.

There's a second man named Monsieur Le Peek.

So Mr. Grand Prix challenges Monsieur Le Peek to a duel, a real to the

death duel.

But this isn't going to be a regular duel.

No, they plan something much bigger, something much more chic.

They're going to shoot at each other in hot air balloons over the city.

And not just at each other. The goal of this high stakes game is to shoot down

the opponent's balloon.

So this dancer must be very special because it's pretty much guaranteed that

least one of them, probably both of them, are going to die.

Now, we normally think of duels as a spur -of -the -moment thing that two

hotheads kind of engage in. You slap someone and then you go out back to

things. But no, they schedule this hot air balloon duel for a month out. And

would think having a month to reflect on this plan, somebody would have come to

their senses.

But no one's head cools down. No one thinks to themselves, maybe this isn't a

great idea.

No, they all go forward with it.

On May 3rd, 1808, it's showtime.

As the crowd gathers in the Tuileries Gardens just next to the Louvre Museum,

most people think they're watching a simple balloon race until they see the

guns.

This is high stakes dueling. There's no surviving in this game.

And this isn't even the strangest part of this story yet. Dueling, it's common

practice to have a second man with you. But in this case, you need to find

someone who is such a good friend that they are willing to get into this hot

balloon with you, knowing that they will likely also die.

So that's got to be a really strong friendship.

As the balloons lift off, a mostly unsuspecting crowd begins to cheer.

Now nearly 2 ,000 feet above the city of lovers, the duel begins.

But first, they must follow the code duello.

This isn't like a Western. You don't have two guys standing there, both ready

draw, and they do what they want. The code duello sets very specific rules for

how a duel is conducted.

The most important part of this code to note is that the man who accepts the

challenge gets to shoot first.

So in this case, because Grand Prix extended the challenge to Le Peek, Le

gets the first shot.

He doesn't have to hit Grand Prix. He only has to hit this large floating

balloon.

But Lepique, who had a month to practice this, totally misses.

That now gives Grand Prix the opportunity to fire his shot, while

just stand there in his little basket and pray that his opponent is as bad a

shot as him.

The shot rings true.

It blasts a hole through the hot air balloon.

The balloon deflates just as you can imagine.

Le Pic and his second both fall like rocks from the sky and are dead.

Talk about falling hard for a woman.

Fortunately, over the next century, the deadly game of dueling becomes outlawed

in most countries.

So how does it end up becoming an international competition?

By the early 1900s, competitive pistol dueling actually is quite popular. And

it's because in 1901, a French doctor named Paul de Villa invents the wax

bullet. So you can shoot your buddies without killing them.

Paul de Villa is so thrilled with his new invention. He starts a club there in

Paris for this competitive pistol dueling.

And then they start popping up all around the world. They get tons of

and there's even a pistol dueling club in New York that puts on duels in front

of Carnegie Hall.

While the wax bullet seems safe, you got to remember it's coming out of the

barrel of a gun.

It's charged by gunpowder.

And you got to remember it's going with the same amount of velocity.

It's just made out of a different material.

In fact, one acclaimed pistol duelist, Walter Winans, famously shoots off part

of his friend's hand with a wax bullet.

Rather than halting the sport, they just add hand guards.

The sport becomes so popular that it gets added to the Olympic program in

in Athens.

But the committee's a little nervous about having people shoot at each other,

they put up dummies and have them shoot at them at different distances.

There's a 20 -meter and 30 -meter duel event, and they actually award medals

the winners.

But shooting dummies isn't enough for these athletes.

Two years later, the world's best duelists put on an exhibition in London

convince the Olympic Committee that they should be allowed to shoot at each

other for sport.

It's the 1908 Summer Games, and people are gathered around the fencing area,

two men appear waiting to face off.

They've got these thick jumpsuits on, and they're wearing helmets with goggles

attached, and they're carrying guns. And the crowd is thinking, is someone about

to die at the Olympics?

The two men square off, raise their pistols, and in an instant,

one takes a direct hit to the chest.

As he goes down, the audience gasps.

It looks like they've just witnessed someone being killed.

But then...

Like Lazarus, he rises from the ground.

The guy's fine. Everyone goes nuts.

It looks like competitive pistol dueling is here to stay, but it's not.

World War I rolls around, and suddenly, you know, shooting your friend for sport

is kind of in poor taste. So that marks the end of competitive pistol dueling.

Personally, I prefer pretending to be shot at.

But there's an even stranger kind of duel.

One that gives new meaning to a face -off.

Perhaps the most violent game I've ever seen is not that of gladiators.

It's competitive power slapping.

And it's exactly what you think.

Two men face off and slap the living hell out of one another.

It is both disturbing, but also hysterical at the same time.

Competitive face slapping is one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

They got these muscle -bound grown men, referees, people watching. They're even

selling concessions. So how exactly does slapping become an organized sport?

In 2017, a promoter named JT Tilly decides that this could be a thing. So

starts a league called Slap Fight Championship.

He starts making videos of the league, and it takes off.

While it may look like a free -for -all, there are rules.

There are anywhere from three rounds to ten rounds.

A round is signified as one person smacks the other person, the other

smacks the other person, round one.

And the judges score based on how much damage you do with your slap. On the

other side, they want to see how well you absorb the slap that was done to

If a person can't recover in 60 seconds after getting slapped, they lose.

If a person gets slapped so hard that the spotter has to catch them, it's a

knockout.

But this slap -happy game isn't without controversy.

Neuroscientists and doctors are obviously against this kind of sport.

But others, especially the fans, would argue that it's no more dangerous than

boxing or mixed martial arts.

Despite the critics, the odd sport continues to grow.

In 2022, this sport catches fire.

And UFC's Dana White starts a power -slapping league. And he gets it

by the Nevada Athletic Commission.

So it started as this kind of viral underground thing has now become an

sanctioned sport of the United States.

Slap -offs, wax bullets, and hot air balloon dueling. We always seem to find

strange ways to challenge one another.

And we're just getting started.

Every game has an origin story.

Some start as religious ceremonies.

Others evolve from simpler, ancient versions.

But there's one that starts the same way a lot of crazy ideas do.

Over a couple of pints.

1974.

You've got a group of Englishmen in a pub, and they are lamenting the fact

English sports are terrible at the time. And so they decide it's time for

something new.

Two men whip off their shoes, whip off their socks, and they start

wrestling.

But it's not the kind of wrestling you might think.

It's toe wrestling.

And it starts gaining a foothold in England.

The matches take place on a specially designed podium, or totium if you will.

You have to put your foot against your opponent's foot. Your heel has to be on

the line. You start with your right toe, and then you switch toes for a total of

three rounds.

While it may look like a weird version of footsie, going toe -to -toe with an

opponent is serious business.

Matches can last for hours.

Foot cramps, leg cramps, toenails torn off.

You can have ankle sprains, knee injuries, broken toes, broken foot.

This is no joke. The injuries are very real.

The game is so popular that in 1997, they tried to get it as an Olympic

and it's turned down.

I'm not sure why.

Despite the snub, toe wrestling gains a legion of dedicated competitors,

including one man who's hooked from the moment he stumbles upon it.

At 14 years old, Ben Woodruff walks into a pub and encounters the World Toe

Wrestling Championship, and it is there. Young Benjamin decides that he will one

day become the world toe wrestling champion.

And sure enough, 20 years later, Ben is locked into a toe battle with 17 -time

world champion Alan Nasty Nash.

And the match is tied at two rounds each, heading into the final round. This

the moment Ben has been waiting for. For the past 20 years, he has worked his

life. towards being the best toe wrestler on earth. He's done grip

He's done squats. And culminating in this, he has had the toenails of his big

toe surgically removed to remove any hindrance from his toe wrestling career.

And like any great sport, the championship comes down to one final

moment.

It's the third of three rounds.

They're tied one all.

And Nasty Nash and Ben are locked in the competition of their lives.

And then Ben, in utter confidence, goes, I've got it. This one is mine.

Turns Nasty Nash's toe, hits the side of the toadium, and it's over.

17 -time champion toppled by longtime lover of toe wrestling.

Ben Woodruff.

Never stop.

Go forward.

Pain is temporary.

Being a champion for a lifetime.

Risking a broken toe in the name of a bar game is definitely unusual.

But risking a broken leg for a simple snack?

Well, that's unbelievable.

We're at a green hilltop in England.

There are 15 ,000 cheering fans.

And they are cheering for the world.

strangest race.

The announcer calls for the start of the event.

But first, a little wheel is sent rolling down the hill.

And then, dozens of competitors start facing it.

Everyone takes off down this 200 -yard hill. And as they're picking up speed,

just means the harder they crash, the harder they fall.

The hill is impossibly steep.

Some people are throwing themselves headfirst to roll, figuring rolling is

and faster way down this hill than running.

Among the tumbling competitors is 19 -year -old Canadian Delaney Irving, and

she's out in front of the pack.

As she's running, her feet get the best of her, and soon she's tumbling. And

with a thud, she hits the finish line, and she's knocked out cold.

Paramedics are rushing over to her. Is she dead?

Is she comatose?

Two full minutes later, she pops up with no recollection of what has just

happened, and she's handed that bizarre wheel that we just saw rolling down the

hill. What is it?

It's a seven -pound wheel of double Gloucester cheese.

Why are they giving it to her?

Because she just won the annual cheese rolling contest.

She is literally waking up to find out she is this cheese champion.

People are cheering her on. It's absolute madness.

That's because cheese rolling is a serious tradition in Gloucester. It

back, at least recorded, to as early as 1826 when the first cheese rolling

contest was recorded. But it probably goes even further back than that.

It is believed that the tradition first began 600 years ago as an ancient New

Year's celebration.

Pre -Christian villagers would take these bales of hay, set them on fire,

roll them downhill as a way to mark the end of winter and the beginning of a new

season. Nobody really knows what happened, but it's possible that at some

cheese is introduced to this scenario.

Next thing you know, you go from a rolling, burning bale of hay down a hill

rolling wheel of cheese.

And because we love to turn everything into a competition, suddenly people are

chasing the wheel of cheese down a hill.

The premise of the game is to catch the wheel of cheese. However, the hill is so

steep that the wheel of cheese is moving at upwards of 70 miles an hour. So a

human cannot physically catch the wheel of cheese. So obviously the rules are

altered a little bit now.

The rules are the first person to cross the finish line after the Wheel of

Cheese is your victor, no matter if they're out cold or not.

But it hasn't always been easy rolling for this cheesy competition.

In 2009, the game is temporarily shut down due to safety concerns.

People break legs.

They suffer head injuries, blown out knees.

Some years have had over a dozen injuries. And in fact, some local police

fire staff have actually refused to staff the event until more safety

are put into place.

It gets so dire that in 2013, the police come after Diana Smart, an 86 -year

-old woman. And why would they come after an 86 -year -old woman?

Well, Diana is the maker of the infamous Wheel of Cheese.

So the authorities think, why not just go to the source?

No cheese, no cheese contest, no injuries.

Luckily for us, Diana politely says shove off, and the contest goes forward

Diana's own cheese.

And so the winner gets to take home the cheese and taste victory, perhaps on a

nice, large cracker.

They say when you fall off a horse, you should get right back on and keep going.

Well, I suppose that all depends on what you mean by horse.

In 1965, a large crowd gathers at an ostrich farm in South Africa.

On the other side of a fence, men attempt to wrangle an unruly group of

massive flightless birds.

And then something truly bizarre happens.

They jump on.

So a gun goes off, and these guys just book it down a track on these ostriches.

There's feathers flying everywhere. There's dust coming up in the air. It's

complete chaos.

Welcome to the sport of ostrich racing, a strange game that dates back more than

100 years.

In 1883, ostrich plumes are known as white gold. A single feather can fetch

$5, which is equivalent to $160 today.

Fortunes are made in the ostrich plume industry, and in Outshorn, the great

mansions built at that time are known to this day as feather palaces.

By the late 1800s, people are flocking to Outshorn to see these nearly mythical

millionaire -making birds.

And they discover that people want to ride these ostriches, and so they start

charging for it, and it's a huge hit.

Ostrich racing becomes incredibly popular in South Africa. And in 1892, an

ostrich farm opens in Jacksonville, Florida, and these races start drawing

incredible crowds.

But ostriches aren't the most cooperative teammates.

To ride an ostrich is not a simple matter.

They aren't horses. They weren't domesticated for riding. They were

for feather production. And they're still quite wily.

To ride one, you must leap from behind, grab the bird by the feathers, and hold

on for dear life.

Ostriches can run up to 40 miles an hour.

They can take single strides of 25 feet.

And when an ostrich gets annoyed, its instinct is to eject the rider from its

back.

The other thing is there's not really a way for ostriches to stop.

So once the race ends, the rider just kind of bails out. They kind of roll off

the back of this ostrich, which might be the best part of an ostrich race.

Turns out ostriches and humans don't have the same connection as with, say,

man's best friend.

That's a bond that dates back many thousands of years, when large

wolves began to evolve into those cute, cuddly companions we just can't get

enough of.

But there's an odd competition out there that celebrates a different side of

dogs. And I must warn you, it gets ugly.

So Scooter is a seven -year -old dog.

He's kind of bald, his tongue's hanging out to one side, his back legs face the

wrong direction, and he kind of looks like a rat melded with a gremlin.

So why is he being hoisted to victory as his owner clutches a trophy?

Scooter. has just won the World's Ugliest Dog Contest.

The World's Ugliest Dog Contest has been going on since the 1970s, and it draws

crowds of 30 ,000 people a year to the Sonoma Fairgrounds.

Last year he got second, so he's going to go for first this year. The

of this event, they use it to promote adoption and show that all dogs are

in their own way.

Past winners of the World's Ugliest Dog Competition include a wide range of...

unconventional beauties.

There's Martha, who judges say looks like a 150 -pound dog in 350

pounds of skin.

Zsa Zsa, whose tongue permanently sticks out of her mouth, touching the ground.

And then there's Quasimodo, who looks like Quasimodo.

But there's one particular breed that seems to be the top dog of this

competition.

A favorite in these competitions is usually the Chinese crested dog.

They're already a little funny looking as it is, but once anything else starts

going off with them, they very quickly become the ugliest dogs in the world.

So what are the judges looking for in awarding the world's ugliest dog? It's

opposite of the Westminster Dog Show, where you're not looking for perfect

or perfect teeth or perfect gait.

These judges are looking for anything that looks weird, bulging eyes or weird

hair growths or tongues hanging out and tails that don't look like they belong

there. As for Scooter, it's something even more unusual that wins the judges

over. Now, Scooter is already a pretty ugly little dog, but what likely cinches

it for Scooter is what Scooter can do.

Because Scooter's legs are backwards, Scooter walks on his front legs.

And boy, if that ain't a crowd pleaser, I don't know what is.

Scooter's Tour de Force performance proves to be a real showstopper.

And I, for one, am curious to see the beauty who will one day dethrone this

good boy.

Team sports are great at showing how athletes can work together towards a

goal. But when that common goal is taking out the opponent by any means

necessary, there are bound to be a few broken bones and concussions.

And missing teeth.

There's a game that's played in Japan that puts basically every other team

to shame, and it looks like the zombie apocalypse.

It's called botaoshi, which translates to pole toppling.

In botaoshi, each side lines up in groups of 75 men, and they

start charging at one another.

Each group defending or attacking a pole, and the goal of each side is to

topple the opponent's pole by any way, shape, or form.

Teams' poles are up simultaneously, so each team is trying to topple the others

while protecting their own.

You can tackle, yank, scratch, claw, anything to stop a player

from taking down your pole.

It's total mayhem. And aside from a soft sparring helmet, the players have no

protection.

Now, there are some rules. You can't kick, punch, or pull a player by the

and you can't strangle a player.

Despite how absolutely chaotic and unbelievably dangerous it seems, pole

toppling is a hit.

It's popular at schools and academies throughout Japan. Even elementary

engage in Japanese pole toppling.

But it's kind of a mystery of the origins of this sport.

The common belief is that it starts in 1945 by Japanese militia that are

training in the chaotic aftermath of World War II.

The most famous version of this game is played at the National Defense Academy,

which is their military academy, and it draws thousands of spectators.

Regardless of the setting, the game is certainly not for the faint of heart.

The nature of Baotaoshi is pretty brutal.

There are broken legs, broken arms, fractured skulls. People are carted off

stretchers. It sounds like total mayhem, but if you watch a match of Botashi, it

is a very orderly game. It's just played on a magnitude that we're not used to.

While a mob of athletes fighting over a giant pole is certainly strange, there

is a sport out there that merges athleticism with something else truly

electrifying.

On an indoor soccer field in California, two teams are suited up in uniform and

ready for battle.

But they're not playing soccer.

The first indication that they're not actually playing soccer, it's the ball.

It's cartoonishly large. It has a diameter of 24 inches.

And that's not even the weirdest thing that's about to happen.

Because that's when the players fire up their tasers.

The game they're about to play is the creation of three diehard paintballers

2011 looking for a new way to put the extreme back in extreme sports.

You've got Leif Kellenberger, Eric Prum, and you've got Eric Wunsch. And they

decide to make a promotional video of this new extreme sport. And, of course,

goes viral.

So it blows it bigger than anyone thought that it would.

The shockingly bizarre game that's blowing up the Internet is called

Taser Ball.

Though I'm not sure there was ever a regular Taser Ball.

Ultimate taser ball is essentially the four -on -four version of handball,

you try to get the ball in the opponent's goal.

But there's a catch.

As you are running, if you are carrying the ball, your opponent can run up to

you and tase you to make you drop the ball.

Ultimate taser ball is absolutely insane.

Guys are getting tased 30 to 40 times a game.

From a technical perspective, the amount of current that the taser delivers is

only about 3 to 5 milliamp, which is not sufficient to cause permanent injury,

but it will cause you to yell and drop the ball.

There are some rules.

You can only tase the player with the ball. You can't tase a player in the

or the neck, and you can only be tased by one player at a time.

But I think one of the most interesting rules would be if you're in the shock

zone. This is the area right in front of the goal where you don't have to have

the ball.

Anyone can be shocked at any time.

By 2012, buzz about the new sport grows.

Before they know it, they've got investors and a four -team international

league. The teams from L .A., San Diego, and Toronto.

So they play their first tournament. They stream it live.

They get a ton of publicity, a ton of people watching. And they start to

Thousands of emails asking, how can we join the league?

Now they're playing taserball matches, I guess you would call them.

And these guys are just steady zapping each other and the crowd's just lapping

it up.

It seems like momentum is building for ultimate taserball.

And then, nothing.

After their mini -tour, they fail to get any sponsorships or TV contracts, and

unsurprisingly, they fold in 2013.

Aside from being the only known sport to use tasers, it also holds the title for

requiring the largest balls in sports.

It's pretty safe to say most of us love eating, but about 400 years ago, one man

decides to make a game of it.

Long before Kobayashi and Nathan's hot dog contest, there is a man from Kent,

England, who makes the folks in Coney Island look like real weenies.

So Nicholas Wood is a farmer living outside of London in the early 1600s,

all accounts, he is a totally normal guy.

Except for one thing.

Nicholas loves to go to taverns and stuff himself silly.

A writer and poet named John Taylor is traveling through town when he comes

Nicholas Wood eating a lot of food. And I'm not just talking about a second

helping of shepherd's pie.

Nicholas Wood is eating 60 eggs.

He's eating a whole lamb.

So Taylor immediately goes up to him and talks to him and wants to know what

he's all about.

It turns out Wood has been making money performing at fairs and taking bets on

how much he can eat.

And his exploits have made him a local celebrity.

His most impressive feats include eating seven dozen rabbits in one sitting.

Another time, he eats a four -course dinner for eight people.

But maybe his most impressive feat is when he eats an entire sheep, leaving

behind only the wool, the horns, and some of the bones.

So what Wood is doing is turning this into perhaps the world's first

eating competition.

with himself, where people bet on what he can down, and generally he downs it.

Over a lifetime of gambling on himself,

Wood only loses two bets, both involving beer.

Once is when he accepts a bet from a nobleman named John Dale, and the bet is

eat 12 loaves of bread, no problem, except they're soaked in beer.

He doesn't even make it through half the loaves of bread.

The second loss comes at the hands of a nobleman named John Sedley. And while

Nicholas Wood is eating Sedley, he is pouring him beer after beer after beer.

And eventually, Wood passes out and therefore loses the bet.

Still, John Taylor sees dollar signs and proposes taking Wood to London.

So what Taylor wants to do is take this eating game on the road.

One of the ideas Taylor has is to have Wood eat an entire wheelbarrow full of

carp. While Wood thinks it over, Taylor rushes back to London to promote his new

act, the Great Eater of Kent.

Taylor comes back to Kent, ready to bring his champion to stardom, and Wood

tells him he's retiring.

Taylor is shocked and asks why, and Wood confides in him that when he was eating

that whole sheep a while back, the bones...

crushed his teeth, and he just can't compete like he used to.

It may have cost him his teeth, but he becomes the godfather of a new sport.

Four centuries later, eating competitions are everywhere.

But it's not always about how much you can eat.

Sometimes it's about what you can eat.

However unusual it may seem to most Americans, half the world's population

bugs in their diet.

Insects are common in nature, and many of them are quite nutritious.

Also, most insects are safe to eat, and many of them are quite tasty.

But people being people, we have to make a contest out of everything, so bug

-eating contests are born.

Take it from a guy who's eaten a lot of crazy stuff, I won't eat that.

In 2012, a reptile store in Florida holds perhaps the strangest eating

yet. Ben Siegel Reptiles in Florida holds midnight madness.

Show up and eat as many worms and cockroaches, yep, both alive, writhing,

wriggling, biting, and scratching in ten minutes, and then you win the grand

prize. And the grand prize is a python!

Is it because pythons eat bugs?

No, they eat monkeys. But it's worth 800 bucks, so I guess that makes it make

sense?

While most eating competitions are overseen by an official organization,

Midnight Madness bug -eating contest is not.

This is totally rogue.

No regulation, no oversight.

They just make a bunch of guys sign waivers.

Despite the risk, 30 contestants sign up for a chance to win the coveted snake.

Here's how it works.

On one side is a giant bucket of bugs, and on the other side is a barf bucket.

And these guys just dig in and start going crazy.

So the crowd's going wild, and the cockroaches are rolling out of their

and worms are everywhere.

Finally, they call time, and the winner is Edward Archbold.

But as the crowd cheers, the 32 -year -old Archbold seems a bit off.

He starts breathing heavily, he vomits, he passes out, and he's rushed to the

hospital.

Just a few hours later, Edward is pronounced dead.

People are speculating that Edward died from toxins from the bugs or from the

worms, but everyone is quick to point out that these are farm -raised bugs.

While bugs in the wild may pick up deadly toxins, bugs from a farm are

a sterile environment and completely safe to eat.

So what killed Edward Archbold?

A few weeks later, the medical examiner's report is released and the

death is choking on bugs.

I think it's safe to say in an eating contest, you're not really chewing. He's

just inhaling these bugs whole. So a lot of them are ending up in his stomach,

still alive.

So some of them are literally crawling up his esophagus, and he chokes on them.

That's what kills him.

You have to wonder what the great eater of Kent would think about today's eating

contests. At least everything he ate was already dead.

Some of the most popular games have very dark origins.

Take that playful playground dancing game, Ring Around the Rosie.

I didn't know the song's lyrics are said to represent symptoms of the Black

Plague. Another seemingly innocent recess romp gets its start as a much

version of itself.

Tetherball gets really popular in the 1930s, but nobody really knows where it

comes from.

There's theories that it comes from volleyball or the short -lived swing

where the goal is to smack your partner with the ball and not get hit yourself.

But there's another possibility that's much more unbelievable.

Life in 9th century East Asia is pretty rough.

There's basically a lot of nomadic tribes moving around and fighting each

over resources.

But by far the meanest and most feared are the Tartars.

And there's a good reason why.

The Tartars are unpleasant.

They're known for decapitating their enemies.

They're a big fan of putting their enemies' heads on those wooden stakes to

basically deter any other tribe from attacking them. They don't just win

battles, they obliterate their enemies.

Some believe they do more with the severed heads than just put them on

There's some evidence that suggests they take a freshly severed head, attach it

to a rope, and then attach that to a pole.

Then two warriors armed with bat take turns hitting the head.

Bored warriors make a game out of it.

The idea is the winner wraps the rope with the severed head.

around the pole in one direction before the other guy does it.

It's brutal.

But this is a brutal time in life.

And I actually am not surprised that there's such a violent path to

because when I was in elementary school, it was when I was my most aggressive

was on the tetherball court.

I mean, that's where you really got some street cred growing up, in elementary

school. And it's a game that requires a little bit of intimidation and

aggression, and that's without the severed head.

Severed head tetherball is certainly unsettling.

But there's another childhood game with an even harder hitting past.

I think we all remember playing dodgeball as a kid, right? You're in the

you're lined up on the line, you've got the big red rubber ball, and you get to

take out your aggression for like 30 minutes in B .E.

Dodgeball is an incredibly popular sport. There's actually adult league for

people who want to resurrect that feeling of fear they had as children.

Surprisingly, dodgeball doesn't start in a gym.

The roots go back at least 200 years to Africa.

But they're using something with a little less bounce.

In the 1880s, Dr. James Carlisle is doing mission work in Africa. And he

across this game that the locals are playing, and it completely blows his

Two teams of men squaring off, trying to peg each other as hard as they can with

rocks.

And not just any rock.

We're talking about the biggest rock they could find.

And the point of this game is not just to hit your opponent, but it is to

them unable to continue.

And here's where it gets crazy.

Once a player gets hit and goes down, the other team has to keep throwing

and pummeling that player to make sure that he stays down.

For tribes who must fight to survive every day, it's a rite of passage to

distinguish the weak from the strong.

And when rocks are being thrown at you, you want to show that you're nimble and

athletic enough to dodge the rocks and not die.

Carlisle notices that actually there's strategy to this. There are people who

work together.

There are people who actually coordinate. It's teamwork.

James is watching this and enjoying every minute of it. Thinks to himself,

can I bring this game home, have people play it, but not have them get their

heads bashed in?

Then he returns home to a teaching job at St. Mary's College. He introduces the

game, but with a big difference.

Instead of rocks, he uses a leather ball.

Students love this game. It becomes extremely popular.

And in 1884, St. Mary's actually takes on Yale in the first ever dodgeball

match.

Now, there's no record on who won, but a Yale professor, Philip Ferguson, he

watches the game and falls in love.

And Ferguson comes up with some key rules that you might recognize.

Splitting the field to two sides. And also the best rule of all, if you catch

the ball thrown at you, the thrower is out.

Ferguson draws up the first official dodgeball rules in 1905, and the rest is

elementary school history.

For thousands of years, we've yearned for the thrill of competition.

And as long as we seek out new ways to challenge each other and ourselves,

keep playing games that are truly unbelievable.

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