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The best of Wikipedia as voted on by you.

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550 points The Pac-Man Illusion

Stare at the cross for 30 seconds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilac_chaser
529 points Luging

Problem: Drunk British tourists in Switzerland are stealing kids' sleds and riding them down the streets, injuring locals.

Solution: Help them go faster. 85mph faster.

Caspar Badrutt, we salute you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Badrutt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luge

"English guests began adapting delivery boys' sleds for recreation, which led to collisions with pedestrians as they sped down the lanes and alleys of the village. This had two outcomes: in the short term the guests began to devise methods of steering the sleds, and so invented the skeleton (head first, prone), the luge (feet first, supine), and the two- and four-man bobsleighs. In the long term, in the interests of pedestrian safety, he built a special track for his guests' activities — the world's first "half-pipe", in about 1870. The track is still in use today"
529 points The Tunguska Event

Just another reason to be glad you didn't live in Siberia in 1908.

As NASA put it: "It is estimated the 220-million-pound asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere traveling at a speed of about 33,500 mph, heating the air surrounding it to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit. At 7:17 a.m., at a height of about 28,000 feet, the combination of pressure and heat caused the asteroid to fragment and annihilate itself, releasing energy equivalent to about 185 Hiroshima bombs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
528 points Large Hadron Collider

Are there extra dimensions? Can we detect them? These questions and more to be answered by experiments conducted inside the world's largest machine... if it doesn't first create a black hole that swallows the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider
307 points Zombie Fungus

There is a fungus that turns ants into zombies:

1. "The fungus, which is alive and well in forests today, latches on to carpenter ants as they cross the forest floor"
2. It begins to consume the non-vital soft tissues
3. When the fungus is ready to spore, its mycelia enter the ant's brain and change how it perceives pheromones, causing the insect to climb up the stem of a plant to a specific height, temperature, and humidity beneficial to the fungus.
4. The fungus forces the ant to attach itself to a leaf, then sprouts a seed pod out of the ant's head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps_unilateralis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/aug/18/zombie-carpenter-ant-fungus
BBC video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8
269 points Blue Balls

Ladies, let's end this debate once and for all. It's real. Please act accordingly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_balls
264 points The Voynich Manuscript

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

The Voynich manuscript is a handwritten book thought to have been written in the 15th or 16th century and comprising about 240 vellum pages,[1] most with illustrations. The author, script, and language remain unknown: for these reasons it has been described as "the world's most mysterious manuscript". Generally presumed to be some kind of ciphertext, the Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. Yet it has defied all decipherment attempts." />

263 points The Great Tulip Bubble of 1637

"At the peak of tulip mania in February 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman." ... you may be able to guess what happened next.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
262 points The Shamrock Shake

This delicious drink blazed the trail for other tasty seasonal drinks, like the Pumpkin Spice latte. To great dismay the frozen treat went into limited production in the early 90's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamrock_Shake
261 points Cuteness

Hello Kitty motor oil? Can no one save us from this madness?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness_in_Japanese_culture