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133 Days Adrift
In 1942, a young ship's steward named Poon Lim found himself alone on a tiny raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He would stay there for more than four months.
True Stories & Extraordinary Incidents
Verified incidents of kindness, survival, bravery, unexpected discoveries and remarkable human decisions.
For general readers · 11 stories
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The Dog Who Waited
Every evening, a big white dog waited at Shibuya Station in Tokyo for his master's train. One day his master did not come home. The dog kept waiting, for almost ten years.
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The Little Ships of Dunkirk
In 1940, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were trapped on the beaches of northern France. To help bring them home, an extraordinary fleet set out across the Channel, of fishing boats, ferries, yachts and pleasure launches.
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The Race to Nome
In the winter of 1925, a deadly illness broke out in a small town in Alaska, cut off by snow and ice. The medicine that could stop it was nearly a thousand kilometres away. Only dogs could bring it.
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The Raft Kon-Tiki
In 1947, six men lashed nine balsa logs together and pushed off from the coast of Peru, heading for islands thousands of kilometres across the Pacific. Experts said the raft would sink within weeks.
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Trapped in the Ice
In 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance was crushed by Antarctic ice. Twenty-eight men were stranded at the bottom of the world. Every one of them came home.
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The 33 Under the Desert
In August 2010, a mine collapsed in Chile's Atacama Desert, trapping 33 men 700 metres underground. For seventeen days, nobody knew if they were alive.
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Thirteen in the Cave
In June 2018, twelve boys from a Thai football team and their coach were trapped by floodwater deep inside a cave. The world came together to bring them out.
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Landing on the River
In January 2009, a passenger jet lost both engines minutes after take-off from New York. The pilots had about three and a half minutes to decide what to do.
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The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
On Christmas Eve 1971, a plane broke apart over the Amazon rainforest. Seventeen-year-old Juliane Koepcke fell three kilometres, still strapped to her seat, and survived.
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The Town That Opened Its Doors
On 11 September 2001, dozens of airliners were ordered out of the sky and sent to a small town in Newfoundland. For several days its people looked after thousands of stranded strangers as if they were family.