This Special Award Is Given for the Most Foolish Deaths: The List Is Astonishing

You've heard of the Oscars, Grammys and Nobel awards, which celebrate human achievement, but did you know there's another which honors deadly stupidity: The Darwin Awards.

Started in the 1980s and named after Charles Darwin, father of the theory of natural selection, these awards celebrate those whose demise has "improved" the human gene pool by removing some of the stupid genes. Cynical as it may be, the idea is simple: by weeding out those with a knack for disastrous decisions, nature might be helping humanity evolve.

The Darwin Awards showcase a parade deadly incidents, both laughable and tragic. Once highly popular in the 1990s and 2000s, the stories were documented on a site maintained by Wendy Northcutt, who also published several books on the subject. Though the site has since faded, it still offers a treasure trove of jaw dropping tales from around the globe. Here are just a few.

In the U.S., a man climbed his roof for repairs and tied himself to the family car for safety. Unfortunately, his wife, unaware of this precaution, drove off, dragging him to a fatal, and spectacular, fall. In another American story, a bored couple on a road trip lit a stick of dynamite for fun. With the car windows stuck shut, they tragically blew themselves up along with the vehicle.

In Poland, an impatient fisherman electrocuted a river to catch fish faster, until he slipped into the water himself. And in Brazil, a reverend hoping to break a record took to the sky with 1,000 helium balloons. Lost to the wind, he vanished from radar, only to be found washed ashore months later.

The list doesn't end there. One man drowned in just 50 cm of water after getting his head stuck in a sewer looking for his keys. A Canadian notary hurled himself against a security window to prove its strength, only for it to give way, sending him plunging 24 floors to his death. And let's not forget the videographer who wanted to film skydivers but forgot his own parachute.

While some of these stories may have turned into urban legends, they all serve as stark reminders of the risks of foolishness. As Albert Einstein famously said, "Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity." Physics may have fixed laws, but stupidity, it seems, is always a choice.