It's difficult to imagine how Reichelt could have thought his invention would be successful. Sure, Batman pulls off this stunt repeatedly and with alarming ease in The Dark Knight. However, Bruce Wayne had the advantage of space age smart cloth, he wasn't just sewing a bunch of trench coats together. And he's also the goddamned Batman.

Not pictured: Franz Reichelt

Seven hours after ingesting the four livers, Mitsugoro was dead. According to the Fugu experts at Wikipedia, the victim of the neurotoxin found in fugu liver "remains fully conscious throughout most of the ordeal, but cannot speak or move due to paralysis, and soon also cannot breathe and subsequently asphyxiates."

This means Mitsugoro almost certainly died looking up at several friends pointing and saying they knew he was full of s**t and that he should pay up (we're just assuming a bet was made somewhere along the line).

Garry: "These windows are unbreakable, kids!"

[General laughter.]

Garry: "No really, check this out. Don't try this at home, kids."

[Garry hurls himself at the glass to shocked cries. The glass holds, and raucous applause erupts from the interns.]

Garry: "Hold your applause. I'm not satisfied with having proved the strength of this glass just once."

[Garry's face turns dark.]

Garry: "Let's see what you're really made of, glass."

[Garry gets a 30 foot running start and launches himself, Superman style, through the glass. This time, the window gives way and sends him plunging to his death.]

"Ha ha! Take that, glass! Oh wait. s**t!"

Perhaps the best (or worst, if you value human life) part about this story is that it wasn't actually the glass that broke - the window pane popped out, and is the reason he fell to his death.

So, in a way, Garry actually did prove his point, though we figure it won't be much consolation to his family. Still, wherever he is right now, he's probably fist-pumping and saying something along the lines of "in your face!"

Anyway, they pushed their limits day after day, determined to prove once and for all that they were the undisputed masters of the universe and all of that which is contained within it. And that they were good at video games. Mostly the video games bit, really.

What They Actually Proved:

If you're in poor enough physical condition, even video gaming can be an extreme sport.

In 1981, Jeff Dailey died of a heart attack after posting a dazzling high score of 16,660. A year later, Peter Burkowski achieved two similar high scores, and also died of a heart attack shortly after.

Now, we're not saying that gaming is bad, but we question the wisdom of playing to the point of neglecting other vital areas of your life, like social interaction, physical health or not being dead.

Some say Jeff and Peter must have had some kind of underlying heart conditions, but that is just speculation. What is apparently real is video game addiction, a sickness of the mind which also claimed the life of 28-year-old South Korean man Lee Seung Seop in 2005, after a 50-hour Starcraft session. All we can say is we hope he won.

In 2007, the radio station KDND 107.9 "The End" held a competition cleverly titled "Hold Your Wee for a Wii," in which participants had to consume copious quantities of water without using the bathroom. The prize, as you may have guessed, was a Nintendo Wii, and Jennifer Strange felt she needed one of these so badly that she would go against thousands of years of biological imperative and prove that she didn't need to urinate.

What She Actually Proved:

Jennifer died of a condition known as "water intoxication", which is caused when vast amounts of liquids are taken into the body and results in a fatal electrolyte imbalance in the brain.

On one hand, you could try to dress this up by saying she just really cared about her children. But then you remember that she wasn't putting her body through agony and unnatural stresses to win some life-saving medicine for her kid. It was a Nintendo f*****g Wii. And it wasn't like some once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, either, if they waited a few months they could have just bought one off the shelf at freaking Wal-Mart.

Everybody involved at the radio station was fired. And, adding insult to death, Jennifer didn't even win the competition. We hope the winner enjoys their game console.

McCandless had a strong contempt for the "empty materialism of American society," and just took off to live in the wild of Alaska, with little to no food or equipment. Just the way nature intended!

What He Actually Proved:

That the corrupt, capitalist society he so loathed was pretty much the only thing keeping him alive. Though the book on McCandless's life and the movie it spawned were sympathetic to the whole situation, many Alaskans believe that he was foolish to embark on such a lifestyle without the appropriate skills or equipment, such as a map or compass. Or common sense.

Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian has said,

"When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn't even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he [had] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament [... ] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide."

Ouch. The man who set out to prove we didn't need frivolities like houses and electricity wound up being the poster child for staying indoors. Good job, Chris.

For more baffling people whose obsessions might cost them their lives, check out 5 Awesome Movies Ruined By Last-Minute Changes. Or find out about some other people you've never heard of, but whose asses you should be kissing, in 5 People You've Never Heard Of Who Saved the World.

Andrew also writes for The Deadbeat, another comedy site that you should check out. /Do it now/.