Original subtitles

[energetic music]

- What if I told you there's an annual tradition

where people build towers out of themselves?

[energetic music] [crowds screaming]

- The little kids that are at the top have

to not only be agile, they have

to be extremely brave, and this is

- Where the tower is the most likely to collapse.

[crowds screaming] [dramatic music]

- Or that there's a good luck ritual,

requiring a whole lot of trust.

- In order to have a healthy life for your baby,

you climb to the top of the shrine

and throw 'em off the roof.

- It's like 30 to 50 feet high.

[tense music] [baby screams]

- How about preparing an elaborate buffet

in the middle of town for a surprising guest?

[energetic music]

- Two tons of food is descended upon

by the hungry Macaques.

- Monkeys eat whatever they want,

whenever they want, on whatever they want.

[dramatic music]

- These are traditions so extraordinary,

they are truly unbelievable.

[logo whooshes] [energetic music]

Traditions are as old

as human history from ancient religious practices

to Super Bowl Sunday.

In the Catalonia region of Spain, there's one

that combines strength, skill,

and most importantly, no fear of heights.

[camera shutters] [ambient music]

- It is 1712 in Valls, Catalonia,

near Barcelona in Spain,

and it is the Dance of the Valencians.

[energetic music]

It's basically a big street party.

- So the guys at the party are having such a good time

that when the music stops, they don't want to leave

and they decide they want to do something crazy.

Rather than go home

and end the party, they decide that the crazy thing

that they're gonna do is make a tower out of each other.

- People have done this for time in memorial acrobats

and jugglers and everything like that.

These guys are different though.

They wanna go for height, they're going

for sheer verticality.

- No one really knows exactly how high they made it,

but a tradition was born.

[energetic music]

- [Dan] They're called Castels or human towers,

and today, they can be as high as a five

to six-story building. [dramatic music]

- This is a tradition that is celebrated all over Catalonia

at various festivals Every year.

It's made up of teams

or Colles of castellers who compete

to build the tallest human tower.

- [Dan] And these castellers aren't just winging it.

There's real technique involved.

- A basic strategy develops over the years

and that knowledge gets passed on to train each generation

and there's a very specific process.

- So the craziest thing is that with all this training

and all this tradition, the bottom layer, the pina

or cone is kind of just anybody from the crowd,

which I would absolutely not want to be.

'Cause basically after that,

everybody starts climbing on you.

So the strategy is to put your biggest,

strongest people on the lowest level

and then a lighter group on top of their shoulders,

and from there, an even lighter group climbs

up their shoulders, and so on and so forth.

[energetic music]

- [Dan] Eventually, there's only room for one more.

[tense music]

- The little kids that are at the top are

usually between four and eight years old.

These little kids have to not only be agile, they have

to be extremely brave.

They have to go sometimes, 60 feet in the air or even more.

- [Dan] It's an exhilarating feat of teamwork,

but it's the next part of the process

that's the most dangerous.

[tense music]

- In order to deconstruct the Castel,

you have to do it all in reverse,

and this is where the tower is the most likely to collapse.

- [Dan] Along with the people holding the tower up.

- Broken arms, legs, shoulders, concussions,

happen all the time.

- Before you get too freaked out, know that the children

at the top are usually wearing helmets

and also their light.

They can be caught by the crowd below.

It's the people at the bottom of the tower

who are most at risk

because they are bearing the most weight

and have the risk of the most people falling atop them.

- [Dan] Despite the danger, the tradition

of the Castell continues to build across Catalonia.

- Today there are around 80 official teams or Colles,

and the biggest event is held every two years in Tarragon

where thousands of people gather in an arena to watch

and compete for the best Castells.

- It's a sight to see.

It's so integral to Catalonian

and Spanish society that in 2010, UNESCO adds it to the list

of intangible cultural heritages of humanity.

[dramatic music]

- While standing atop a human tower may sound terrifying,

there's another tradition that has become known by some

as the most dangerous festival on Earth.

[tense music]

- Every six years in the beautiful area

of Lake Suwa, in Japan, a celebration is held.

It's called the Onbashira Festival,

and it's both frightening and exhilarating.

[crowd cheering] [energetic music]

- [Dan] The point of the festival isn't just for the fun

of riding giant logs down a mountainside.

It's actually part of a religious ceremony

to replace the pillars of the local Shinto temples.

- Shinto is the Indigenous religion of Japan

and it has this very firm belief in the natural world.

It's believed that there are Gods within nature

and that these deities are to be respected.

- There are two temples to the south of Lake Suwa

and two to the north. [electronics bleeping]

Each site is designated by four pillars,

one to mark each corner

with each pillar being made of an entire felled tree

- Tradition dictates every six years,

four trees representing the four elemental corners

of the Earth are replaced at these four major shrines.

- The problem is these trees are harvested nowhere near

the shrines, so people are going to ride them there.

[dramatic music] [crowds screaming]

- These trees immediately just take off down this hill

that is 100 meters long and is sitting at a 35-degree angle.

I don't know how fast these trees are going,

but one can assume it's pretty quick.

[dramatic music] [crowds screaming]

- [Dan] It's also unbelievably dangerous.

- There are dramatic injuries, broken limbs, paralyzation,

there have even been accounts of deaths.

And getting the log down the slope is just one

of the first stages. [crowds screaming]

- Once the tree makes it to the bottom of the hill, you have

to get this tree to these Shinto temples.

[crowds screaming]

Using ropes and only human power,

these participants spend the next three days dragging

these 12-ton trees, six miles

to get to the site of the temple.

- [Dan] The treacherous journey is made worse

by a raging river. [crowds screaming]

- Pulling these enormous trees across a river is

a fearsome task.

They're battling the current,

they're battling the water weight

that gets added to the trees.

In 1992, two men drowned in this operation.

- The entire festival from riding the tree to carrying it,

to getting it to the temple sites,

to hoisting these trees up,

all of this incredibly dangerous.

- And what's even more impressive,

they've been doing this every six years

for the last 1,200 years.

They've never missed an Onbashira Year.

[image whooshing] [dramatic music]

- If cheating death by riding a 50-foot tree

down a mountain doesn't get your blood pumping,

there's a tradition in England

that'll definitely fire you up.

[scene change whooshing] [tense music]

- Every November 5th in the town of Ottery St. Mary

in the south of England,

something truly remarkable takes place.

[crowds screaming and laughing]

It's called the Tar Barrel Festival.

[crowds screaming]

- The festival involves participants running

through the town's lanes with barrels

of burning tar hoisted onto their shoulders.

- [Dan] While the exact origins

of the tradition are unknown,

it's believed to go back 400 years

to the infamous failed gunpowder plot of 1605.

- Catholics are really upset with King James,

who is a Protestant king

because they feel that they are being persecuted

and so they decide that they're going to try

to assassinate the king. [dramatic music]

- [Dan] A man named Robert Catesby takes the lead

in the assassination plot.

- So, Catesby gets these conspirators together

with the plan of bringing all of these barrels of gunpowder

into the basement of Parliament House

on the 5th of November.

And so Catesby and the conspirators are hoping

to blow up the entire medieval building.

[dramatic music] [scene change whooshing]

- [Dan] As they start sneaking the gunpowder

into the basement the day before,

something unexpected happens.

- Guy Fawkes, who must be one

of the most hapless victims in all of history,

is guarding the gunpowder.

[tense music]

And is caught.

[tense music]

- And the entire plan gets blown up.

[image whooshing]

And so, all of the members of this plot are executed.

[tense music]

Since then, on November 5th,

every year in England, Guy Fawkes Day

or Bonfire Night is celebrated as sort of a remembrance

as to what might have happened to Parliament.

Basically, it's just,

"Hey, let's just light things on fire tonight."

[fireworks blasting] [dramatic music]

- But in honorary St. Mary,

they've turned it into this extraordinary festival

of flaming barrels. [dramatic music]

[fire blasting] [crowds screaming]

- Over the course of the night,

consecutively larger barrels get lit

until midnight when the largest barrel is set a flame

and all 70 pounds of it is hoisted onto the shoulders

of a runner who goes charging through the town with flames

and sparks shooting everywhere.

The crowd going wild. [fire blasting]

[dramatic music] [crowds screaming]

- [Dan] If you are thinking this sounds pretty dangerous,

you're right.

- And to be clear, every year there are dozens

of burn injuries.

There's not a festival that goes by

where someone doesn't walk away slightly scalded.

But there are actually more spectators

with burn injuries than there are participants.

In 2007, 36 spectators had burn injuries.

- Steady, steady, steady. [crowds screaming]

[crowd cheering]

- It's mayhem,

but people still walk away having a great time.

[crowd cheering and conversing]

[crowd cheering and conversing]

[dramatic music]

- It seems November 5th is quite the night

to get lit in Ottery St. Mary.

- Keeping a baby healthy

and safe is every parent's priority.

So, just how far would you be willing to go

to ensure your child never gets sick again?

For some small towns in rural India,

one hair-raising tradition holds the unbelievable answer.

[lighthearted music]

- 700 years ago in the south of India, parents are put

through the emotional wringer.

Infant mortality is really high,

and there are a few places for parents to turn to

if their child is sick.

- Like a lot of parents when facing the unknown

or a grave situation, they turn to their faith.

Although not part of traditional Hindu Scripture,

there is a tradition that a saint prescribed the parents

of ailing infants to build a shrine,

and then, to show their faith in the Almighty,

drop their infants from the top of the shrine.

[scene change whooshing] [dramatic music]

- It's like 30 to 50 feet high.

That's a serious trust fall.

As the legend goes, if parents do as instructed,

a hammock-like sheet appears out of thin air

and gently cradles the baby to safety down to the ground.

- From then on, it becomes a tradition.

People in this region now believe in order

to have a healthy life for your baby, you climb to the top

of the shrine and throw 'em off the roof.

So every year, that's what people do.

[tense music]

- [Dan] Today, parents don't leave anything to chance.

Instead of waiting on a magic hammock to appear,

they bring their own bed sheet.

[energetic music]

- From the rooftop, a devotee to the shrine,

or a priest grabs the baby, shakes him

or her and says a blessing, and then releases the baby.

[energetic music]

- And once the baby lands safely,

there's a mass celebration

and probably a little relief.

The baby is passed around for hugs and kisses.

Around 200 families participate in this.

[energetic music]

- According to the devotees,

the practice ensures a healthy life for the child

and fortune and prosperity for the family.

- [Dan] But not everyone is a fan of baby tossing.

- In 2009, the practice of baby tossing comes under fire

when a video surfaces from Southern India

that shows the kid being thrown off the roof.

This prompts the National Commission for the Rights

of Children to intervene.

And in 2011, they declare child tossing illegal.

[scene change whooshing] [dramatic music]

- [Dan] Still, that doesn't stop those who believe

the blessing bestowed is worth the legal risk.

[tense music]

- In some isolated

and remote villages like Mangasuli,

every year, come rain or shine,

if you have a baby, that baby is getting tossed.

- Devotees say that this longstanding tradition

should be respected and they have no plans of stopping.

[dramatic music]

[baby screams]

- A baby falling 50 feet is bound to spark a few tears.

But what about a strange sporting tradition

where crying is not only expected, it's required.

[tense music]

- Every year in late spring, all across Japan,

you have Nakizumo festivals which translates

to crying baby sumo.

Parents will enter babies as young

as six months old into these competitions,

and once the match begins,

these sumo wrestlers are responsible

for trying their best

to make their baby cry.

[speaker speaking in foreign language]

[baby cries] [audience laughing]

- Now before people think that this is a form

of child abuse,

actually, this cultural practice emanates

from this long history and tradition within Japan.

- Starting about 400 years ago, a piece

of folklore spread throughout Japan

that a crying baby wards off evil spirits.

[baby cries]

The louder they are, the longer they are.

A baby's cries ensure a healthy and long life.

[dramatic music] [crowds conversing]

- [Dan] From here, a tradition is born,

and as with any competition, there are rules.

[dramatic music]

- When a child reaches the age of six months,

he or she can be entered in the Nakizumo Festival.

- Each child is paired with a novice sumo wrestler,

and a priest will start off the ceremonies

by saying a blessing for the health of the babies.

And then following that, you have a referee, also known

as a Gyoji, who will start the competition

with a wave of their wooden fan.

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] Now it's time to make their baby cry

by any means necessary.

- They can jiggle the baby, make faces, they can make cries

of nake, nake, nake, which means cry, cry, cry.

[tense music]

- If all else fails,

the next step would be to break out the devil's mask.

[Gyoji screams] [baby cries]

- The baby who cries first is named the winner.

[dramatic music] [baby cries]

- If there is a tie between the two babies,

meaning they both cry at the same time,

the winner is determined by whose cry is louder.

[babies crying]

After a few knockout rounds,

there's one baby remaining standing

and they are deemed the winner of the Nakizumo Festival.

[tense music] [baby cries]

- [Dan] So what does the winner take home?

- There's no monetary prize.

There are no awards or trophies to take home.

What they win is a blessing that the baby will enjoy a happy

and healthy life.

[tense music] [baby cries]

- Who knows, maybe some of these crybabies will grow up

to be mighty sumos themselves.

[ominous music] - A person's deathbed is

often seen as their last chance

to make amends for a lifetime of sins.

But a few 100 years ago,

some folks find a clever workaround.

Why ask for forgiveness when you can just give your sins

to someone who's hungry for them?

[scene change whooshing] [energetic music]

- Making it into Heaven is

something many people take very seriously.

And a few centuries ago,

if you thought your sins might stop you from getting there,

here's what you would do to prevent that.

Hire a sin eater.

[tense music] [crowds screaming]

A sin eater is typically a local man

who absorbs the sins of the departed.

So their stint, making amends in purgatory isn't prolonged.

- We all know there's a Heaven.

We all know there's a Hell, but there's another place.

Purgatory. [tense music]

- Purgatory is an idea introduced in the 16th century

during the Protestant Reformation, a place

where your soul suffers until your sins are expunged.

It's sort of like Hell, but it has an end date.

You just don't know when that date will be.

[tense music]

- [Dan] This is where the sin eaters come in

- To redeem a loved one from sins,

the process is actually very simple.

The family places a loaf of bread on the chest

of the deceased.

The person's sins pass into the loaf of bread.

- The sin eater then sits

in front of the body facing the door.

He eats the bread from the deceased's chest

and washes it down with a bowl of ale.

By doing this, the sin eater literally soaks up

the loved one's sins.

For this, they get a coin which they put in their pocket

and then quietly take their leave.

- Of course, the consequence of this is

that the sin eater has now taken on the sins

of the deceased.

[tense music] [camera shutters]

- Who in their right mind would want to be a sin eater?

Well, it's typically guys who didn't have a lot of options.

Poor men, often homeless, and they weren't paid much for it.

Only about four pence,

which is really only a couple of bucks.

- [Dan] Unbelievably, this strange tradition lasts

for over 200 years.

[tense music] [scene change whooshing]

- The last known British sin eater is a farmer,

Richard Munslow, who experienced the nightmare

of losing three out of four of his children

to disease in one week

- [Dan] In order to ease his children's journey to Heaven.

Munslow eats their sins, but he doesn't stop there.

- Here's the crazy thing.

He continues doing this for others until he dies in 1906.

[energetic music]

- Now that's one nice neighbor.

Food is at the heart

of many remarkable rituals across the globe,

but an annual buffet in Thailand is extraordinary, not

for the food itself, but for the unusual guests of honor.

[sultry music]

- On the final Sunday in November,

a massive banquet is prepared full of sticky rice,

fresh fruit and vegetables,

brightly-colored jellies and sweets,

literally, two tons of food is out on offer at this banquet.

- [Dan] Who is all this for? [dramatic music]

3,000 wild Macaques monkeys.

[monkeys screaming] [tense music]

- Macaques live everywhere in Lopburi.

They roam freely and they often steal food from tourists.

- [Dan] But on this one special day,

no theft is necessary to eat.

- The festival begins

with dancers dressed in colorful costumes

to look like monkeys, bands, music, this whole sort

of festival vibe going on.

- Then platter after platter of fruit is brought forth

and descended upon by the hungry Macaques.

Sometimes before the volunteers can even place them

on the table.

- Why all the monkey love? [dramatic music]

The inspiration dates back

to a 2000-year-old Hindu tale,

featuring a truly heroic primate.

[dramatic music]

- The impetus for this festival comes

from a great Hindu myth called the Ramayana.

There's this Prince Rama

and his wife Sita is captured by the demon Ravana.

Then the monkey God Hanuman, best friend of Rama

storms the island, bringing his entire army

of monkeys takes Sita back from Ramana

and casts Ramana off into the ocean.

[tense music]

- Hanuman is actually credited with building the city

of Lopburi, so they believe

that these Macaque monkeys may very well be descendants

of the great Hanuman himself.

[tense music] [monkeys screaming]

- [Dan] In 1989, a hotel owner decides to thank Hanuman

for his prosperity

by holding the first-ever monkey buffet,

it's an immediate hit.

- The festival is a way for the thousands

of Hindus in Thailand to celebrate their faith,

their histories, and the great role of Hanuman

in the Ramayana. [tense music]

- It's really a sight to see monkeys eat whatever they want,

whenever they want, on whatever they want.

- They are honored, they feast,

they gorge all throughout the city.

It becomes an all-day, all-you-can-eat buffet.

- And like most party guests,

the monkeys don't help you clean up.

They leave this huge mess of paper plates and cups.

It's kind of like monkey Thanksgiving.

There's just a bunch of monkeys

in food comas napping all over the town.

[dramatic music]

- Today, more than 10,000 people come

to witness the monkey buffet annually.

- When we hear the term GOAT,

we sometimes think the greatest

of all time like Gretzky, Jordan, or Muhammad Ali.

But there's another GOAT that inspires a military tradition

few have ever heard of.

[tense music]

- It is the beginning of the American Revolution.

The British are attempting to assert control

of Greater Boston Harbor.

The colonial militia aren't really trained soldiers.

They need all the advantages they can get.

So they're gonna take position on the high ground,

in this case, on Breed's Hill next to Bunker Hill,

and try to repel the coming British assault.

[tense music]

- Being uphill, the Americans have the advantage.

The first wave of Brits sent up the hill are mowed down.

[tense music]

Their superiors send up a second wave.

They're stepping over their dead comrades,

again, just carnage a British bloodbath.

[tense music]

[guns firing]

- [Dan] As legend has it just as all hope seems lost,

something rushes onto the battlefield.

It flashes past the troops, taking the lead up the hill

right into enemy fire.

Who is this brave hero? [tense music]

[goat blares]

- A Billy goat. [dramatic music]

Behind the British line is the 23rd Regiment Welsh soldiers,

and they are so inspired when they see

this Billy goat charging up the hill,

they get themselves inspired.

They leave their positions, they charge into battle,

they charge up the hill.

[dramatic music]

- Supposedly the Americans are so taken off-guard

by this sudden charge that they are overcome.

- The British seize the summit of Breed's Hill

and they drive the Americans

out of their fighting positions.

[dramatic music]

- Although the Americans will go on

to gain their independence, the goat actually achieves

a certain amount of immortality.

It becomes the official mascot for the Welsh Fusiliers.

- [Dan] A goat has served

with the Welsh Regiment ever since,

but it's not the last time their hooved hero saves the day.

- During the Crimean war,

the 41st Welsh infantry is suffering

in the extreme cold of winter.

[tense music]

- [Dan] A soldier on watch gets resourceful

and decides to wrap the regiment goat

inside his coat for warmth.

[wind wooshing]

- Struck by a case of hypothermia,

the man dozes while he's on watch,

but the goat remains alert and begins bleating.

[dramatic music] [goat blares]

- That alerts him to the Russian soldiers

who are actually sneaking up on them.

At that point, he's able to rouse his comrades

and repel the Russian force.

A goat comes to the rescue again.

- The goat is hailed as a hero.

They call him Hebe.

[energetic music]

- [Dan] After the war, Hebe meets Queen Victoria

and apparently makes quite an impression.

- She is smitten.

And when Queen Victoria learns

of Hebe's death years later, she decrees that all

of his successors will come

from the Royal herd of Kashmiri goats.

- [Dan] These goats aren't just mascots

with an honorary title.

They're actually members of the battalion.

- They get an officer's rank, they get a regimental number,

and they're treated like comrades in arms.

The mascot actually gets officers pay

and that pay goes toward his upkeep.

That upkeep is done by the goat major, an actual member

of the battalion as well.

They get two cigarettes a day to eat, plus a pint

of Guinness to wash it down.

- These days, the goat's main duty is to march at the head

of the regiment at ceremonial parades,

meeting the Royals in his finest regalia.

- But goats will still be goats.

And in 2006,

Lance Corporal Billy Windsor actually headbutts one

of the drummers in a parade he's charged

with conduct unbecoming of an officer and demoted in rank.

- The most recent recruit is Lance Corporal Shenkin IV,

who was chosen from the Royal herd of Kashmiri goats in 2018

and trained at the barracks in Cardiff.

- He's already met King Charles III,

and so far, at least, no headbutting, no shenanigans.

[energetic music]

- It takes more than one bad soldier

to ruin a military tradition.

Sometimes it takes an army.

[scene change whooshing] [tense music]

- West Point is the oldest of the American Service Academies

and it is the academy

through which cadets are appointed as officers

in the United States Army.

Training at West Point is grueling,

so that in addition to the academic demands

that are placed on the cadets, they have

to endure very intense physical training

that includes the 12-mile march

where you carry a 50-pound pack.

- [Dan] And when you train cadets

for the harsh realities of war,

there's only one way to know if they're ready for battle.

[dramatic music]

[pillow thuds]

A pillow fight. [tense music]

- Since 1897, west Point officials have sort

of looked the other way

as cadets gather once a year in this space called

the central area, and they bring pillows with them

to blow off steam, have a fight,

take a swing at some comrades, and actually build comradery.

- [Dan] It's all fun and games

until August 2015 when some freshmen take

this tradition too far.

[tense music]

- The new cadets known as plebes

actually add more to the game here.

They're gonna start using elbows

and they start doing a move known as the Blue Falcon.

[pillow thuds] [tense music]

- The Blue Falcon is an unexpected maneuver

where one plebe hits another plebe

from behind in a surprise attack,

knocking them to the ground.

[pillow thuds] [tense music]

- [Dan] Not surprisingly,

cadets start getting seriously hurt.

[tense music] [pillow thuds]

- There are 30 injuries.

They include broken noses, fractured skulls,

- Broken arms, broken legs, dozens of bloody noses.

One cadet is even knocked unconscious.

It's just a sea of screaming and blood and feathers.

[dramatic music]

- After this melee, the superintendent of West Point,

Lieutenant General Robert Caslen bans

this tradition forever. [dramatic music]

- So, after 118 years of tradition,

the West Point pillow fight is officially put to bed.

- We all love holiday traditions,

especially when they revolve around food.

From Turkey on Thanksgiving to chocolate on Valentine's Day.

But one town in Southwest France takes the tradition

of Easter Eggs to a whole new level.

[dramatic music]

- Every year in Bessieres France, an army

of volunteers show up on the end of Easter Weekend.

They're dressed in yellow and white,

but it's not an egg hunt that's on their minds.

- This festival is known as [speaks in foreign language]

The Festival of the Giant Omelet.

- [Dan] The organizers call themselves

the Global Brotherhood of the Knights of the Giant Omelet,

and they take this task very seriously.

- The town square is cordoned off

and in the center is assembled a bonfire.

[fire crackling]

The brotherhood arranges giant tables on either end

of the bonfire and commences in cracking 15,000 eggs.

[tense music] [eggs cracking and plunging]

- Once the eggs are whisked

and all of the seasonings are added, it's time

to make our omelet.

Now, this isn't a 13-inch little fry pan.

This is a 13-foot fry pan.

It takes a forklift to lift the pan over the bonfire.

[pan sizzling]

- Next, you gotta add some fat to the pan.

What do they use?

73 quarts of duck fat.

[dramatic music]

- But less you forget it's still France,

and these chefs adhere to the brigade system.

The main chefs are manning spatulas

while the Ma�tre Cuisine is overlooking the whole thing,

ensuring that each chef does their due diligence.

- [Dan] They must work together in perfect precision

to avoid burning the omelet

because you can't exactly start over if you mess up.

- Typically, cooking an omelet is a fast thing,

but here, this giant omelet can take up to a half-hour.

Let's not forget the 300 pounds of French bread.

- Thousands of paper plates are at the ready,

and each chef dolls out their portion of the omelet

to the 2,000 guests, and now it is time to eat.

- In the end, the omelet is much more like scrambled eggs

and people do not mind. [energetic music]

- [Guest] Mm.

- [Dan] How did this big tradition get started?

You can thank its tiniest emperor.

[ominous music]

- Legend has it,

Napoleon once stayed at an inn in the village

and was so impressed with the innkeeper's omelet

that the next day he returned with his entire army

and ordered an encore. [dramatic music]

- He orders all the villagers

to gather all the eggs from all the chickens in the village

and bring 'em to the Inn to make the omelet.

And apparently, the omelet was a huge hit

with Napoleon's army, and that's how the tradition begins.

[energetic music]

- Fast-forward to 1973

and Bessiere makes it an official holiday.

Every Easter Monday, the chefs gather

to fulfill the little emperor's delicious wish.

[energetic music]

- While the French may love their eggs,

this small Spanish town prefers tomatoes,

and in their tradition, they get to play

with their food first. [energetic music]

- Each year in Bunol, a small Spanish city near Valencia,

an incredible spectacle takes place.

- The event begins at 9:00 AM

with the [speaks in foreign language]

which is a large greased pole

with a giant ham on the top of it.

[crowd cheering]

So for the next hour, people try to climb that pole,

sometimes injuring themselves pretty seriously.

[crowds screaming]

But if you do get to the top,

you get to keep that [speaks in foreign language]

- Two hours later, a precisely 11:00 AM a horn is sounded.

That's when the real party begins.

- At that moment, over 100 metric tons, 220,000 pounds

of overripe squishy tomatoes are poured into the crowd

and they go nuts.

- But for the next hour,

everyone in the crowd joins

a somewhat psychotic frenzied tomato battle royale,

throwing tomatoes, pelting each other with tomatoes,

rolling in tomatoes, and, my God, it's wonderful. [laughs]

[crowds screaming]

- [Dan] It's called La Tomatina

and it's the world's largest food fight.

- You'd think that La Tomatina has some big deep meaning

behind it, but really it just translates

to the big tomato thing.

[tense music]

- The tradition of La Tomatina goes back to 1945.

You have a group of costume performers parading

through the city when a group of unruly teenagers knocks one

of the costume performers to the ground,

sparking a fight in the crowd.

- It descends into chaos incredibly quickly.

The crowd goes to the nearest vegetable cart

and starts hurling tomatoes

at what would become the very first Tomatina.

- [Dan] From there, an annual tradition is born,

well, except for a few years back in the early 1950s.

[tense music]

- The Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco shuts down

the festival in Bunol

because it doesn't have religious significance.

- Franco threatens to throw anyone

who violates the ban in jail.

In 1957, the citizens of Bunol are so angry about it

that they actually throw a Tomatina funeral.

They load up a casket with tomatoes, parade it

through the town, and the women whale at the casket

of Tomatina. [dramatic music]

Franco is so humiliated,

he allows the festival to be reinstated.

- [Dan] Today, more than 20,000 tomato tourists flock

the streets of Bunol every year,

more than doubling its usual population.

According to locals, you haven't really done La Tomatina

unless you're picking seeds

and bits of tomato outta your hair and nostrils, [laughs]

and butt crack for the next couple of days.

- How does everyone get cleaned up?

Well, when the tomato-throwing is over, fire trucks drive

through the town and spray everybody with hoses.

Sounds like a party to me.

[dramatic music]

- Turns out, once the town is sprayed down,

the tomato acid left behind actually cleans the streets.

Now that's a win-win.

- We've all heard of the polar bear plunge,

a New Year's Eve tradition where people brave frigid waters

for charity or just bragging rights.

But in Romania, the faithful submerged themselves

in the frosty Danube for a much higher reward.

[tense music]

- Every January 6th in tiny villages

to large cities across Romania,

parishioners follow their priest to the nearest river.

Most often it's the Danube.

Once at the water's edge, the men

of the congregation often stripped down

into just their underwear because they're about to jump

into the Danube. [eerie music]

- We're talking January in Romania.

The average air temperature is 21 degrees Fahrenheit.

The waters of the Danube are just above freezing.

It is super cold.

- These intrepid souls aren't just going in for good luck

or a simple blessing for the new year.

No, they're on a much more sacred mission.

A priest will offer up a blessing.

Then the priest pulls out a Holy Cross

and proceeds to toss it into the air over the river.

[dramatic music]

- So now, the men have to retrieve it.

[tense music]

Searching for the cross can take up to a half-hour.

Sometimes it actually sinks all the way to the bottom.

- Whoever finds the cross in the water, they then have

to swim back to the shore with their prize in hand.

- The belief is that the first man to retrieve the cross

and present it to the priest will be protected from ill will

or misfortune for the following year.

That is if they don't get pneumonia from being

in the Danube in 21 degrees,

- The roots of this ritual stem from the baptism of Jesus

by John the Baptist

in the Jordan River, which is a lot warmer.

The idea is that once you are bathed in that water

and blessed by the priest,

it will wash away all of your sins.

- [Dan] But this leap of faith comes with very real

and high stakes.

[dramatic music]

- So when your body is suddenly immersed

in this freezing water,

your ability to breathe becomes hampered.

You start to hyperventilate, which could lead

to hypothermia as well.

It's not uncommon to see people blackout

during this contest and, in some cases, have

to have an ambulance take them to a hospital to try

to revive and resuscitate them.

- You would think that

the potential consequences would deter people

from enacting this ritual,

particularly in modern times.

But it hasn't.

Still, hundreds of young men gather

on the banks of rivers and strip down

and plunge into the water every year

to have their sins washed away.

[dramatic music]

- It probably doesn't hurt

that everyone drinks homemade vodka

before taking the plunge.

[eerie music]

While Romanians test their religious fervor

in the cold waters of the Danube,

folks in Queens, New York test their soul's stamina

in the sweltering heat of the summer.

[energetic music]

- Queens, New York is known

for the US Open Tennis Championship

and, of course, hosting a portion

of the New York City Marathon.

- [Dan] But the New York City Marathon only lasts one day.

There's another annual run

that takes 52 days to complete.

- Every summer, 10 to 15 runners participate

in the world's longest foot race.

[feet tapping]

- [Dan] It's called the Self-Transcendence

3,100-Mile Race.

And that's as much a challenge of the mind

as it is the body.

- A typical marathon is 26 miles.

These runners, for over 50 days,

run more than two full marathons a day, every day.

[tense music]

- Unlike the New York City Marathon,

participants in the transcendence race are circling

around the same elongated block in Jamaica, Queens.

- [Dan] That's because many of the runners are here

for more than just the exercise.

- Some runners do the race

because they are followers of the race's founder,

Bengali Guru Sri Chinmoy.

- Chinmoy is this Bengali spiritual leader who moves

to New York in 1964 and then opens these spiritual

and meditation centers in Queens.

- Sri Chinmoy teaches the act

of extreme athleticism as a path

to transcendence, a way of reaching the beyond.

[eerie music]

- He becomes a prolific poet

and long-distance runner at an ashram in India

before coming to the States.

Once here, he runs marathons and ultra-marathons

and starts performing feats

of superhuman strength and endurance.

He even benches six light aircraft

at an exhibition in 1998,

saying it's his way of inspiring humanity

to push past their limits.

- [Dan] This leads Chinmoy

to begin hosting the 3,100-mile race in 1997 as a way

to help his followers understand the power of the mind.

- Even though Chinmoy passes away in 2007,

his devotees continue to follow this tradition and run

and meditate day in, day out for nearly two months.

The same cement paving stones on the sidewalk,

the same iron fence posts over and over

and over again until they reach 3,100 miles.

[tense music]

- In order to hit their mark in 52 days, the runners have

to reach nearly 60 miles in a single day.

That means running for about 18 hours

and then resting for six,

and then getting right back on the road.

[tense music]

- Out of the 10 to 15 starters each year for a number

of years, only three or fewer finish.

- Thankfully, the Self-Transcendence Race is

an official qualifier for the Boston Marathon.

But after this 3,100-mile race,

a typical marathon might be too easy.

[runners laughing]

[tense music]

- Whether it's running through town with a flaming barrel

or enduring a 2,000-pound tomato pummeling,

one thing is certain,

the greatest traditions are the ones

that are truly unbelievable.

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