Top 5 Most Weird Human Marvels

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 Mignon, The penguin girl - she was born in the early 1900′s under the name Ruth but her real surname remains unknown. ‘Mignon’ is the French word for ‘cute’ which she supposedly adopted in the beginning of her career. She had phocomelia: a condition described with stunting of the limbs and fusion of the digits. Mignon’s fingers were fused together in a way that resembled flippers. She waddled on her stubbed legs which led to her stage name – The Penguin Lady. She was a proficient player of marimba, an exotic African instrument and was featured in many sideshows including the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago and the 1939 and 1940 World’s Fairs in New York.

The last of the aztecs, Schlitze Surtees – his real name, birthplace and birth date are actually unknown. He suffered from  microcephaly, a neurodevelopmental disorder due to which he had a very small brain and skull, a rather small height (about four feet), myopia and moderate to severe mental retardation. He had the mind of a 3-year old: unable to take care of himself and could only speak in monosyllables. Despite that he could still perform simple tasks, understand most of what he was told and had a very quick reaction time. People around him described him as loving and sociable person who enjoyed dancing, singing and performing in general. He was an occasional actor and had a lifelong career as a sideshow performer, being a  major attraction in several circuses at the time.

The Lilliput Troupe -  a family of Jewish dwarf entertainers who survived imprisonment in Auschwitz concentration camp during WW II. Their real surname was Ovitz and they are the largest family with thyroid dwarfism ever to be recorded.They founded an ensemble and performed all over Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and 1940s, singing in different languages and playing music using small instruments. On May 12, 1944 the whole Ovitz family were deported to Auschwitz where they caught the attention of German camp doctor Josef Mengele. He conducted various unbelievably cruel experiments on them but the Ovitzes managed to survive and actually lived to see the liberation of Auschwitz on on January 27, 1945. Eventually, the family immigrated to Israel where they continued touring quite successfully.

Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man - born in 1862, at the age of five his limbs grew extremely large due to a condition now thought to have been Proteus Syndrome rather than elephantiasis. In 1884 he joined a side-show attraction where he earned quite a lot of money and was treated well by people.The Elephant Man died  from suffocation while sleeping at the age of 27.

 Chang and Eng Bunker – the most famous pair of conjoined twins, born in Siam, today Thailand. ‘The Siamese Twins’ was actually the name of their act while travelling with P.T. Barnum’s circus and it soon gained popularity as a synonym for the condition conjoined twins. The Bunker brothers were joined by a band of flesh, cartilage and their fused livers at the torso but in modern times, they could have been easily separated.

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