These eccentric figures have gone down in history for everything from their odd eating habits and unorthodox pets to their extravagant spending and questionable relationships with sea creatures.
Public DomainHenry Cyril Paget, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey — also known as the “dancing marquess” — was perhaps one of the strangest figures in history.
We’re all a little bit weird, some of us more than others. There are those, however, who blaze past casual weirdness and enter the ranks of the epically bizarre. The behaviors exhibited by these individuals rank them as the weirdest people history has ever seen.
Henry Cyril Paget was a British aristocrat who blew through a significant inheritance in just a few years with odd purchases and extravagant parties. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Hetty Green was one of the wealthiest women in American history, but she was so miserly that she refused to seek medical care for her son after he injured his leg — and he ultimately had to have it amputated.
Then there were historical figures like Diogenes, an ancient Greek philosopher who was notorious for his public defecation, and Tarrare, a French soldier with an insatiable appetite who may have once eaten a toddler.
These are the stories of history’s weirdest people and the eccentric lifestyles that made them infamous.
Diogenes, The Offbeat Philosopher Who Criticized Plato
In the fourth century B.C.E., a Greek philosopher named Diogenes became renowned not for his teachings but for his bizarre lifestyle. He was born in Sinope, but he either fled or was banished after he and his father were accused of devaluing coins during the minting process.
Diogenes ended up in Athens, where he took up shelter in a large ceramic jar and survived as a beggar. His life of poverty inspired his philosophy, and he was one of the founding figures of Cynicism, the school of thought that states humans are reasoning animals who should live simply and disregard social norms to achieve happiness.
Diogenes sometimes sat in on Plato’s classes at the Academy of Athens, frequently criticizing the famed philosopher’s teachings. When Plato once described man as “an animal, biped and featherless,” Diogenes reportedly brought a plucked bird into his lecture room and proclaimed, “Here is Plato’s man.”
Public DomainDiogenes purportedly lived in a piece of pottery on the streets of Athens.
He later moved to Corinth, where some stories claim he was captured by pirates and sold into slavery. When he spotted a man named Xeniades in the crowd, he reportedly said, “Sell me to him; he needs a master.” He was later freed, and he took up residence in a cypress grove outside of Corinth.
According to Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, Diogenes once met Alexander the Great. “And when that monarch addressed him with greetings,” Plutarch wrote, “and asked if he wanted anything, ‘Yes,’ said Diogenes, ‘stand a little out of my sun.'”
The odd philosopher’s notoriety was only enhanced by his troubling behavior, such as masturbating and urinating in public. One legend even claims that he once peed on Plato’s stool.
Diogenes died sometime between 324 and 321 B.C.E., but stories of where and how he spent his final days differ. Some say he died by suicide, while others believe he perished after eating raw octopus. Regardless, his absurd life made him one of the weirdest people in history.
History’s Weirdest People: Tarrare, The Frenchman Who May Have Eaten A Baby
Public DomainThere are no known depictions of Tarrare, but he was a polyphage like his fellow Frenchman Jacques de Falaise, seen here, who was also known to eat live animals.
Tarrare’s real name is unknown, but his title as one of history’s weirdest people is undisputed.
He was born near Lyon, France, around 1772, and he developed an insatiable appetite at an early age. By the time he was a teen, he could reportedly eat his own weight in food in a single day, though he remained slim at just 100 pounds.
Unable to support his expensive eating habits, his parents kicked him out, and he survived by eating bizarre things in front of crowds for money. Some of his more memorable meals included stones, an entire basket of apples, and live animals.
When the War of the First Coalition began in 1792, Tarrare joined the French Revolutionary Army, but the meager military rations weren’t enough for him. He resorted to searching through dungheaps for scraps and eventually became sick from a lack of food.
An 1819 volume of the London Medical and Physical Journal reports that Tarrare was admitted to the military hospital, where he devoured the poultices in the apothecary room — and worse:
“One day, in the presence of the chief physician of the army, Dr. Lorence, he seized by the neck and paws a large living cat, tore open its belly with his teeth, sucked its blood, and devoured it, leaving no part of it but the bare skeleton: half an hour afterwards he threw up the hairs of the cat, just as birds of prey, and other carnivorous animals do.”
Doctors also witnessed Tarrare eat a live eel and the entirety of a meal that had been prepared for 15 men. These feats gave his military superiors an idea. They fed Tarrare a wooden box with a piece of paper inside, and when it passed through his body two days later, the note was still legible. Could Tarrare be used to smuggle message across enemy lines?
On his first mission, Tarrare was sent into Prussian territory, where he was immediately captured. They imprisoned him until he confessed why he was there, and his captors then chained him to a latrine until he defecated.
He returned to the hospital, where he was allegedly caught drinking blood that had been drawn from other patients and the bodies of corpses. When a 14-month-old child vanished, all suspicions turned to Tarrare, though he never admitted to the crime.
Tarrare died from consumption in his mid-20s, and his subsequent autopsy revealed intestines that were filled with pus, a massive stomach covered in ulcers, and an unfathomably foul stench. The surgeon was so disgusted that he cut the examination short, bringing an abrupt end to the story of one of history’s weirdest people.
