Original subtitles

[pulsating electronic music]

- What if you survived not one catastrophe but three?

[suspenseful music]

- After the crash of the Olympic,

this has to be deja vu for Violet.

And these propellers are spinning

and pulling the lifeboats towards them.

- It's an indescribable scene of slaughter.

- Or that being thrown in prison

was the best thing that ever happened to you?

- The city is about to be destroyed.

[explosion booming]

- Putting him in this half underground cell with no windows

and a tiny slit for air

is going to have some surprising consequences.

[suspenseful music]

- And yes, miracles do happen,

but this many in one man's lifetime is just plain weird.

- He has suffered a heart attack,

an allergic reaction, and a coma.

- [Mitch] But then he wakes up.

- A year later, he's playing his scratch-offs

like he always does.

- Bill Morgan thought his luck had run out last year.

- I just won 250,000.

- These are the stories of odds so surprising

they are truly Unbelievable.

[mysterious music]

War is hell.

And any soldier might take along a good luck charm

to help them survive the trenches.

It might be a rabbit's foot, or a picture of a loved one,

or in some cases, that good luck charm

might not reveal itself until the heat of battle.

[artillery firing]

- During World War I, Britain has the highest number

of civilian and military casualties

any nation has ever sustained in a four-year period.

Horace, Billy, and John Trickett are brothers and soldiers,

which doesn't bode well for the Trickett brothers.

- The three brothers are all members of the infantry.

And if you serve in the infantry in World War I,

you have a 65% chance of being killed or wounded

throughout the course of the war.

Sadly, Horace and Billy failed to beat the odds

and are killed in combat.

- [Dan] It would've been all three

if it weren't for a very common lucky charm.

- John Trickett's on the Western Front in 1918.

He's fighting in the trenches,

bullets are flying everywhere,

and a German bullet comes in his direction.

It's aimed right for his heart.

- [Dan] But something unexpected

keeps the bullet from reaching its target.

- It manages to strike a penny that's in his pocket.

- Because the bullet hits this penny,

it doesn't hit him in the heart.

Instead, it changes trajectory.

The bullet goes up through John Trickett's nose

and exits out of his ear.

- It's an incredibly lucky chance

that the bullet strikes this penny.

The penny is the size of a thumbprint,

yet it has the ability to spare John Trickett's life.

He's lost two of his brothers, he's lost his left ear,

but I'm sure that his family's beyond relieved

to at least have one son make it back to them.

- Given the brutality of trench warfare,

the odds of losing two brothers in combat

might seem pretty high.

But the chances of finding a twin sibling

you never knew you had, that's gotta be almost impossible.

I said almost.

[rhythmic music]

- Two identical twins are born

to an unwed 35-year-old mother.

She has no means of supporting them,

so she has to make the incredibly difficult call

to put both of her twins up for adoption.

- We're just coming out of the Depression,

and families can't afford to adopt two children at once.

And the boys are adopted by two separate families.

- One brother goes to the Springer family of Piqua

and the other brother

goes to the Lewis family of Lima, Ohio, just 45 miles away.

- [Dan] In the first

of what will be many striking coincidences,

both families name their new sons James, or Jim,

as the two will go on to be known as.

- Jim Lewis grows up knowing that he has a twin brother

somewhere out there in the world.

And while it weighs on him,

he never does anything about it until he turns 39.

[suspenseful music]

- It's 1979.

This is long before web resources

that could help you find long lost relatives,

so Jim Lewis has to go to courts.

He has to go to halls of records.

And eventually, after digging, he does find a phone number

for his long lost twin brother.

[suspenseful music] [phone ringing]

- Jim Springer is, of course, shocked when he gets the call

to find out he has a living twin.

But things get stranger.

- They find all these coincidences

despite not living together for 39 years.

- Both Jims named their first pet dog Toy, both of them.

Not only that, they both have adopted brothers

both named Larry.

If that's not enough, they both meet, fall in love,

and marry women with the name Linda.

- The coincidences keep stacking up.

Both Jim Lewis and Jim Springer

divorce that woman named Linda.

Both Jim Lewis and Jim Springer get remarried

each to another woman named Betty.

The coincidences move beyond the pale of belief.

- Both Jims end up having sons with their respective Bettys

and they end up naming these sons James Alan Lewis

and James Allan Springer.

Not just the same first name

but the same first and middle name.

- They both have a lifelong passion for woodworking,

they both suffer from migraines

that started when they were 18,

and they both went into law enforcement.

- [Dan] The twins unbelievable story

reaches Dr. Thomas Bouchard Jr, a psychologist and director

of the The Minnesota Study

of the Twins Reared Apart project.

- It became apparent

just from working with the twins right away

that there was just a lot of similarity

across all kinds of behavioral characteristics.

- Bouchard is studying twins and triplets

because they share the same genetics,

but what he finds is that twins and triplets raised apart

share identical traits that they would've had

had they been raised together.

- But the story of the two Jims

blows away even Dr. Bouchard.

He even says that if he didn't know them personally,

he would not believe this.

[mysterious music]

- In a final strange coincidence,

Dr. Bouchard's Minnesota twin research study

was conducted in the Twin Cities area.

Some believe a sure way to turn life's odds in your favor

is to do good deeds,

that good karma will flow back to you.

If you've never believed that before,

the unbelievable story

of one heroic nurse from Buffalo, New York

is about to change your mind.

[rhythmic music]

- Penny Brown, an intensive care nurse

at Buffalo General Hospital,

unexpectedly gets a night off thanks to a slow shift.

She decides to go see her son's baseball game

and surprise him.

[spectators chattering]

- Meanwhile, Kevin Stephan is at the game,

acting as the bat boy for his little brother's team

when one of the other players loses the grip of the bat

and it hits him in the chest, stopping his heart.

[rhythmic music]

- The phenomenon is called commotio cordis.

It happens when a sudden fierce blow

hits the anterior chest wall.

It can stop the heart immediately

and basically cause sudden death.

- Cardiac arrest by blunt force trauma

is not something parents, or coaches,

or anyone are prepared to confront.

- Luckily for Kevin, Penny is in the crowd,

and begins CPR, and is able to resuscitate him.

[rhythmic music]

When an event like that happens,

it takes someone who knows what they're doing

to actually help.

And thank goodness that fate aligned in a way

where Penny had the night off.

- This is an intense situation of near tragedy.

We can only imagine the relief the parents feel.

And for people employed in emergency medicine,

they're often told, you know, "I owe you my life for this.

I don't know how I'll ever be able to repay you."

- [Dan] But on this night in Buffalo,

a simple thank you is all Kevin and his parents can offer.

- Kevin makes a full recovery.

Seven years later,

he is a bright and engaged high school student.

He's a volunteer firefighter.

He has this need to help people,

probably influenced by the fact that Penny saved his life.

He's also working as a dishwasher.

[tense music]

Kevin is supposed to have the day off,

but his boss asks him, can he come in

and pick up an extra shift?

Kevin agrees.

- In the restaurant, a woman begins choking.

[tense dramatic music]

Incredibly, this 17-year-old kid

who's working on his day off busts into the dining room

and begins giving her the Heimlich maneuver.

After a few tries, he's able to clear the blockage,

and this panicked woman starts breathing again.

- Another coincidence is even though it's Kevin's day off,

his mom is there in the restaurant too.

- She recognizes the woman.

It's Penny Brown, the same woman

who saved Kevin's life seven years earlier on her night off.

- If Kevin's mom hadn't been in the restaurant,

no one else would've made the connection

that these two people

have saved each other's lives at some point.

[mysterious music]

- It's like they say, the life you save may be your own,

well, at least eventually.

- They say the odds of a plane crash today

are 1 in 11 million.

This figure definitely did not apply to combat pilots

during World War II.

More than any other branch of the military,

the odds were stacked against their survival.

One, however, is a soldier of unbelievably good fortune.

[explosions rumbling]

- [Roosevelt] December 7th, 1941,

a date which will live in infamy.

- Sergeant Alan Magee

joins the United States Army Air Forces

in the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack

in late 1941.

He's assigned to the 360th Bombardment Squadron,

which is a B-17 squadron.

- [Reporter] American squadrons of Flying Fortresses

stand ready to raid enemy-occupied territory.

- Magee's job is one of the most important on the aircraft,

of the ball turret gunner.

He is suspended ventrally beneath the aircraft,

and it's his job to protect it from an attack

by a fighter interceptor from below.

There are very few environments more dangerous than that.

[explosion booming]

He receives that assignment

at a particularly difficult time of the war

for a B-17 air crew.

[anti-aircraft guns firing] [dramatic music]

- The life expectancy of someone who's a part

of a B-17 bomber crew, on average, is only 11 missions.

[dramatic music]

This is Sergeant Magee's seventh mission,

so his nerves are a bit frayed

because they're flying over Saint-Nazaire, France.

[suspenseful music]

- The Germans at the time are producing

most of their U-boats here,

so they've got the city completely up-armored

with anti-aircraft weaponry.

[anti-aircraft guns firing]

- During the raid, flak fire strikes the aircraft.

That flak fire injures Magee.

It also shreds his parachute.

As a result of his injuries,

he makes the decision to crawl out of the ball turret.

And when he enters the fuselage of the aircraft,

the right wing tip is blown off by an anti-aircraft round.

And so then suddenly, Magee is thrown clear of the aircraft.

- At one point during his free fall,

Sergeant Magee prays that God

will give him one more chance to live.

Suddenly he crashes into the top of a train station,

which is assembled with glass and steel girders.

And this glass actually absorbs

some of the shock of his fall,

which leaves Sergeant Magee badly injured, but still alive.

[suspenseful music]

- The wounds that Sergeant Alan Magee is suffering from

are beyond extensive.

We're talking 28 shrapnel wounds.

We're talking several broken bones.

He has sustained severe damage to his liver and his lungs

and his arm is almost completely severed off.

- [Dan] Magee cannot believe he's still alive

and neither can the German troops who find him.

Instead of finishing the job or leaving him to die,

things take yet another unexpected turn.

- One of the German soldiers happens to be a physician.

And this physician states that, "Although you are my enemy,

I am a physician first and I am going to give you

my best attempt at saving your life."

[suspenseful music]

- Now, despite this German doctor saving him,

Magee still has a long road of recovery

and actually remains a prisoner of war

for two years until he's liberated in 1945.

- Magee is ultimately awarded the Purple Heart,

obviously for the wounds that he receives in combat.

He also receives the Air Medal for valor.

- And what's even more impressive,

Sergeant Alan Magee will go on

to receive his pilot's license.

Being a survivor of such trauma isn't enough to dissuade him

from wanting to stay in the sky.

[mysterious music]

- Few would count being taken prisoner as lucky,

but for one man in captivity in Martinique,

it turns out to be a very good thing.

- Ludger Sylbaris is definitely a guy

who you would want on your side during a fight,

but not the kind of guy that you want dating your daughter.

He's a convicted felon, he's a drunk,

and he's always in and out of jail for fighting.

May 7th, 1902, Ludger gets in another fight.

The police, they decide that they've had enough with Ludger

and they stick him straight into solitary confinement.

- Putting him in this half underground cell

with no windows and a tiny slit for air

is going to have some surprising consequences.

- Unbeknownst to Ludger,

the city of Saint-Pierre, Martinique

is about to be destroyed by a nearby volcano.

[eruption rumbling]

It erupts on the morning of May 8th, 1902.

A 1,075-degree pressure wave sweeps across Martinique,

destroying everything in its path.

Anything more combustible than stone just burns immediately.

This is as close to an actual hell on Earth as you can get.

- And unfortunately, due to this eruption,

nearly all 30,000 residents of Saint-Pierre

are killed instantly.

- [Dan] Nearly, but not all.

Ludger Sylbaris is alive in his solitary confinement cell,

unaware of the scale of the disaster,

but he knows something is off.

- The ash, the smoke, the heat,

they're all penetrating his tiny cell

via that small slit at the top.

And it's getting dire.

So he urinates on his clothes and jams them into the vent

to prevent this burning ash from getting into his cell.

Ludger can feel the intense heat

despite not having a window.

He is badly burned, but still inside his cell

in a city filled only with charred corpses.

[dark music]

- And it's not till days later, when rescue crews

can finally approach the ruins of the city,

that they hear Ludger's screams coming from below.

- [Dan] Now here is where Ludger's fortune changes

in a most unpredictable way.

[mysterious music]

- The unbelievable story

of his survival through this disaster

makes him instantly famous.

He even becomes a circus performer.

Barnum & Bailey hire him and promote him

as the an who survived Doomsday.

- [Dan] While the newfound fame changes his life,

he doesn't let it change who he is as a person.

- Barely a year after this incredible survival

through Doomsday, during a circus performance

Ludger goes berserk.

He attacks his fellow performers.

He stabs a tent builder.

He even assaults Mr. Bailey himself, his own boss,

before the police are able to subdue him and arrest him.

[dramatic music]

- The more things change,

the more they stay the same, I suppose.

[haunting pulsating music]

Ludger is eventually released and lives until he's 55,

dying of natural causes instead of a natural disaster.

- The vast seas account for 139 million square miles

of the Earth's surface.

Given all that space, you would think the odds

against being in a single maritime disaster

are pretty much in your favor.

But a century or so ago,

one young ship stewardess named Violet Jessop

upends that thinking.

[mysterious music]

- It's 1911, and Violet Jessop works as a stewardess

aboard the RMS Olympic, one of the three flagships

of the vaunted White Star Line.

The Britannic, the Olympic, and the Titanic,

they are the greatest ships ever built at the time.

They're a pinnacle of technology.

They're engineering marvels.

- Harland & Wolff, the ship builders, say,

as far as it is possible to do so,

these ships are designed to be unsinkable.

[siren blaring]

- [Dan] On September 20th, 1911, Violet is on the Olympic

as it departs Southampton for New York.

But before even reaching the Atlantic,

something completely unexpected occurs.

- A British naval ship called the HMS Hawke

is traveling alongside the Olympic.

The wake of the Olympic is so powerful

that it causes the Hawke

to actually collide with the passenger ship.

[collision banging] [suspenseful music]

= Bam!

The front of the Hawke

hits the starboard side of the Olympic

and causes a massive tear into the side of her,

and she starts to take on water.

Despite the collision and despite all this water

being taken on by the ship,

everybody safely makes it off of the ship,

including Violet Jessop.

- She's definitely lucky that she survived a shipwreck,

but on the other hand, she's out of a job.

Thankfully, there is another job available

on another White Star vessel called the Titanic.

[tense rhythmic music]

- One night, Violet hears a giant crash,

[booming and crunching]

followed by a low, dense, tearing sound.

[tense dramatic music]

- You have to imagine, after the crash of the Olympic,

that this has to be deja vu for Violet.

- Men, women, children, ship staff

are all scrambling to try to make it out alive.

[suspenseful music]

There were 17 lifeboats on the Titanic,

only enough for about half

of its more than 2,000 passengers.

- Violet does make it onto one of the lifeboats

and survives yet another shipwreck.

- [Dan] You'd think after enduring two maritime disasters,

Violet would stay far away from the sea.

- Cut to four years later, Violet takes a job

as a ship stewardess aboard the third White Star Line ship

known as the Britannic.

- During this time, World War I is raging,

and the Britannic has been converted into a hospital ship.

- The German Navy has decreed,

be it military, be it cargo, be it civilian,

it's open season on these ships.

[suspenseful music]

- On the morning of November 21st, 1916,

Violet is preparing breakfast for a sick shipmate

when she suddenly hears an explosion.

[explosion booming]

They don't know if it's a torpedo or an underwater mine,

but they do know the damage is catastrophic.

- It took the Titanic about two and a half hours to sink,

but the Britannic is gonna go down in about 40 minutes.

- Violet is actually on one of the first four lifeboats,

so you would think that her odds of survival

are pretty high.

- [Dan] But you'd be wrong.

[suspenseful music]

- When the Britannic is being evacuated,

the captain is still trying to save the ship

and has the engine going at full speed.

But the ship is going down at the bow,

which is raising the stern

and pulling the propellers slightly out of the water.

And these propellers are spinning

and pulling the lifeboats towards them.

[suspenseful music]

- One of the lifeboats is actually drawn

into the spinning blades.

It gets absolutely destroyed.

- It's an indescribable scene of slaughter.

I mean, that's just the stuff of nightmares.

- [Dan] Everyone aboard her lifeboat can see what's coming

and jumps into the water, including Violet who can't swim.

- As Violet is struggling to stay afloat,

a small motorboat comes along and pulls her aboard.

Even though she is scraped and has suffered bruising,

she's alive and she lands safely

on the nearby island of Kea.

- Violet manages to walk away from this third ship sinking.

And here's the crazy part.

She would continue to work on sea

up until the year 1960

when she retires at the age of 63.

- Some say if you're lucky enough to survive

a near-death experience,

you should probably buy a lottery ticket.

Australian Bill Morgan would tell you that's smart advice.

This unlikely story begins in a car,

when a mundane commute becomes anything but.

- Suddenly, his check engine light comes on,

which we all know is not a good time.

So he's already thinking he's gotta get home,

try to diagnose what's going on with his car.

- He begins to feel sick and dizzy.

He's actually having a heart attack while he's driving.

He ends up passing out and getting into a bad accident.

[suspenseful music]

The paramedics arrive and find him.

They determine that he's had a heart attack

and they start administering treatment.

- A very small percentage of people

are allergic to the standard medications

that are given by paramedics during a heart attack scenario.

Bill is one of them, but he's unconscious.

He's not able to tell the paramedics about this allergy.

Bill's heart stops for 14 minutes,

which is an unbelievable length of time.

[electrocardiogram beeping] [dark suspenseful music]

Usually, medical personnel

would give up after seven minutes,

but they keep fighting for Bill's life

for another seven minutes

and they are able to restart his heart.

- [Dan] The bad news, however, is that's all the doctors

are able to do.

While he has a heartbeat, Bill's in a deep coma.

- After 12 days, his family is faced

with the agonizing decision of whether to keep him alive

in a brain-damaged state or to allow him to die.

- [Dan] As the family weighs the choice,

they're approached by a specialist

who offers a long shot experimental treatment.

Despite the low chance of recovery,

the family agrees to try.

- Bill is transferred to a new hospital,

the specialist applies the therapy,

and now the waiting begins.

[electrocardiogram beeping]

- [Don] For 15 days, nothing happens, no sign of life.

- But then, miraculously, he wakes up.

Even more miraculously, his cognition is normal.

- [Paul] He recovers in the hospital and goes home.

- Bill must feel an appreciation for life.

Although he has suffered a heart attack,

an allergic reaction, and a coma,

he is basically able to pick up right where he left off.

- [Dan] He even continues his daily routine

of buying a scratch-off.

- A year later, he wins a brand new car,

a Toyota Corolla worth $30,000.

What a win for our man Bill.

- Bill Morgan thought his luck had run out last year.

- [Dan] Bill's lucky break earns attention

from a local news channel,

which sends a crew to do a story

about the coma-surviving lottery winner.

- As they're putting this news story together,

they ask Bill to recreate his winning lotto ticket.

He says, "Well, why don't I just buy another scratch-off

and scratch it off in front of you?"

What happens next truly defies the odds.

- I just won 250,000.

[news crew laughing]

I'm not joking.

- [News Crew] You're not, are you?

- I just won 250,000.

- After the second win, Bill calls his wife,

gives her the delightful news.

They can buy a second house, he retires early,

and he enjoys what he calls his bonus years.

What a wonderful way to frame your life.

- Bill beat incredible odds

by surviving clinical death and a coma.

But winning the lottery twice as well?

I'd call that unbelievable.

- Never is it more obvious that the odds are against you

than when you play the lottery.

But if you're one

of the hundreds of millions of Americans

who buys lottery tickets each year,

you may find this next story oddly encouraging.

[rhythmic suspenseful music]

- It's 2012, and Virginia Fike

stops by the Olde Stone Truck Stop to buy her lotto ticket.

They say that the odds of winning the lottery

are one in hundreds of millions.

You have better chances of getting struck by lightning.

[thunder cracking]

But Virginia knows this, she doesn't care.

It's just for fun.

- When people play the lottery, they often have a system.

They pull numbers from life events, birthdays,

meaningful dates, that kind of thing,

even though playing the lottery is extremely random.

Virginia chooses her lottery numbers

based on her parents' anniversary,

their ages at the time, and the year they were married.

- On this day in 2012, Virginia orders her lotto tickets

and the clerk mishears her.

Instead of giving her one lotto ticket,

he gives her two lottery tickets

with the identical number selection.

Rather than correct the clerk, Virginia goes,

"It's just an extra dollar.

Who cares?

Let's let it ride."

- [Dan] Unbelievably,

this very specific combination of dates

matches the lotto drawing, and it's worth $1 million.

- But that's not the most interesting part of this story.

Virginia has two tickets with the exact same number.

They both win, and she doubled her prize.

- I mean, think about what the odds are

just of winning the lottery once.

It's against all odds that she's winning twice in one day

on a ticket that was an error.

[mysterious music]

- Virginia's winning numbers

might have been a very lucky coincidence,

that is if you believe in coincidence.

In the 1960s, one scientist convinced himself

that with some careful observation,

he could take the luck out of lucky numbers

and bring casinos to their knees.

[suspenseful music]

- Dr. Richard Jarecki, a physician and a researcher,

is one of those people that believes

that if one applies scientific observations

towards any problem,

a scientific solution can be derived.

- [Dan] In the early 1960s, Dr. Jarecki uses this theory

to take the chance out of games of chance.

- He looks at casinos, he breaks them down into two parts,

controls and variables.

Poker and blackjack have human components,

card decks gets switched out, dice are changed,

so there's no real way to control those variables.

But there's one game he notices

that has the fewest number of variables, and it's roulette.

Jarecki realizes that the longer a roulette wheel

is put in service, the more likely it is

to develop nicks, and dents, and scratches,

things that will force the ball to fall on certain numbers

with greater frequency.

- [Dan] Before ever placing a bet,

Jarecki and his wife watch thousands of spins

at different roulette wheels

and painstakingly write down the results.

- He finds that one table, the number 33

comes up 3 to 5 times every 35 spins,

way outside the normal pattern.

- He also notices that one wheel in Monaco

is prone toward a certain set of numbers,

7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 19,

22, 28, and 29.

[suspenseful music]

- So in 1964,

Dr. Jarecki makes his way to a casino in Monaco.

He's got a hundred dollars with him.

He sits down at a table that he's very familiar with.

He knows this roulette wheel.

And he starts making bets.

[tense suspenseful music]

[roulette wheel rattling]

And he starts winning and winning and winning.

- [Dan] The meticulous studying is paying off.

He turns his initial $100 into $5,000.

And that's just the beginning.

- One casino in particular in a place called San Remo

becomes Dr. Jarecki's favorite.

The tables in there are a little bit older

and he finds some exploitable biases

that he can use to his advantage.

- One night he walks out with $42,000,

another night with $158,000.

He comes back eight months later

and wins $192,000 over a weekend.

- [Dan] That's not exactly a typical outcome

for roulette players.

And the casino owners aren't happy.

Adding insult to injury,

crowds start applauding Jarecki as he plays.

- The owners are forced to ban Jarecki for two weeks

so they can recoup their losses and stay in business.

- Dr. Jarecki returns.

He wins over a hundred thousand dollars.

And he says, "If the casino owners don't like losing money,

they should get a new job selling vegetables."

- [Dan] The casinos are desperate

to figure out his method,

but when asked by the press,

the doctor isn't exactly forthcoming.

- He invents a story.

He calculated odds using a super computer

at the University of London.

But the truth

is more unbelievable than the cover story.

Supercomputers at that time

cannot accomplish what Dr. Jarecki is doing

using his powers of observation and a paper and pencil.

- Eventually the casino owners discover

the source of his success,

and so they spend a lot of money

to replace these old rickety roulette wheels.

But it's a lot less money than what they were losing

when they had the old ones that he could predict.

- All told, Dr. Richard Jarecki made an estimated 8 million

in today's dollars at the roulette table.

If he'd tried this method in Vegas,

he might be sleeping with the fishes.

- Charles Darwin once said,

"It's not the strongest of the species that survives,

nor the most intelligent.

It is the one that is most adaptable to change."

When nature stacks unbelievable odds against one tiny puppy,

she fights to prove Darwin right.

[rhythmic suspenseful music]

- In Oklahoma City, a puppy is born

with a severe birth defect.

Both of its front legs are deformed

and it can't walk on its own.

- The dog's mother realizes

that the dog does not stand a chance.

And because of that, the mother dog's instincts

tell her to smother the child.

- [Dan] The pup's mother isn't the only one

who's ready to give up on her.

- Because the dog can only really move itself with its chin

and drag itself along,

the vet is pretty much on the same page as the dog's mom

and thinks that putting the dog out of its misery

is probably the best idea.

- [Dan] But the Stringfellow family in Oklahoma City

fall in love with this puppy

and decide to give her a chance, even naming the dog Faith.

- They eventually get this dog to start raising her chin

by offering her peanut butter on a spoon.

And they get her to raise up a little higher and higher

by offering treats, and affection, and rewards.

- With time and patience, the Stringfellow family

eventually train Faith to do the unthinkable,

to become bipedal.

Faith can now walk around only on her hind legs.

- This dog was given a zero chance of survival,

and now look at her.

Faith is eating, going to the bathroom,

walking around, doing all these things

that nobody expected her to do and more.

- [Dan] Faith's standup approach to getting around

quickly goes viral.

And as she racks up views, she gets Uncle Sam's attention.

[tense music]

- It's the early 2000s,

right at about the time of the surge in Iraq.

[gun firing]

And there are a lot of wounded warriors

who have been injured by everything

from small arms fire to RPGs

to the improvised explosive device.

[rocket whistling]

[explosion booming]

And so they returned as amputees.

They may have survived the physical injury,

but how will they navigate the emotional side of the injury?

And that's where Faith comes in.

- When you see Faith cuddling

and being playful with these soldiers,

you can kind of see this transfer of intent in her eyes,

where she's kind of letting them know

things are gonna be okay.

And it really does kind of elicit a lot of emotion.

It can bring a tear to your eye.

[light rhythmic music]

- Faith visited more than 2,300 wounded soldiers

all over the world, earning her the rank of E5 Sergeant.

After living a long and happy life,

she passed away at the age of 12.

But she's not the only furry fighter

to inspire troops by beating the odds.

[suspenseful music]

- The battleship Bismarck is the largest

and most-feared vessel built by the German Navy

in the Second World War.

[naval guns firing]

It boasts eight 38-centimeter SK C/34 naval guns.

[naval guns firing]

Each one can fire a thousand-pound projectile

up to 25 miles.

[naval guns firing]

- [Dan] Also aboard, a much smaller four-legged weapon.

- Cats have a long tradition of being brought aboard ships,

obviously for the practical purpose of controlling vermin

but also for companionship, good luck, a ship's mascot.

This goes back as far as the Egyptians

and certainly didn't stop in World War II.

- [Dan] But on May 26th, 1941,

this cat has more than rodents to fend off

as the ship comes under devastating attack

by the British Navy.

[plane buzzing]

[explosion booming]

- Naval warfare is particularly terrifying.

When the attack begins, there's really nowhere to go.

Your only chance of escape

is to run through these skinny, maze-like hallways

that are filling with water, and smoke, and fire,

and to get to the top deck, where you can abandon ship.

- There are 2,200 souls aboard the Bismarck

and only 115 survivors.

That's like a 5% survival rate.

- [Dan] Sinking the Bismarck is a big win for the Allies.

But when a British destroyer called the Cossack

is sent to inspect the wreckage,

they get quite the surprise.

- What they see is just carnage.

The ship is destroyed.

There are bodies floating in the water.

Yet, amidst all of this wreckage,

aboard a wooden plank floating in the water,

there is this cat.

The fact that this cat is able to navigate

all of this debris, all of this destruction,

and find a wooden plank

to just sit on in the middle of the ocean,

is kind of a miracle.

- [Dan] Impressed with his grit,

the British sailors adopt the cat and name him Oscar.

[suspenseful music]

- The cat stays aboard the Cossack for months.

He's like a mascot.

Everyone on board knows the dangers of war,

and yet here's this cat who survived.

He gives them hope that they can make it out alive.

- After Oscar joins the HMS Cossack,

it is escorting a convoy through the Strait of Gibraltar,

where it's struck by a German torpedo.

[bomb exploding]

- Out of the 220 crew members on board,

only 61 of them, including Oscar, actually survived.

- He's rescued and taken aboard

the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.

- [Dan] Unfortunately,

Oscar just can't seem to catch a break.

- A couple of weeks later, a torpedo strikes the carrier,

blowing a 130-foot sized hole in the side of the hull.

After it begins tilting 18 degrees,

an evacuation order is given.

- The destroyer HMS Legion is dispatched

to help out the sinking ship.

And yet, once again, Oscar is plucked from the sea

by a brave British soldier.

The cat has managed to survive

three of the most notorious sinkings

of the Second World War.

- When the story is retold among sailors

and eventually makes its way into the newspapers,

Oscar's name is changed to Sam

because Oscar just sounds a little too German.

- Given the cat's history

of having ships shot out from under her,

a desk job sounds like a good idea for everyone.

- They say brevity is the soul of wit,

so it's usually a good idea

to keep speeches short and to the point,

or you risk losing your audience.

But for Teddy Roosevelt,

a shorter speech might have killed him.

[fanfare music]

- It's October 1912, and Theodore Roosevelt

is in Milwaukee, campaigning for a third term.

And he pulls up to the Gilpatrick Hotel,

he stands up in the open car, raises his arm,

holding his hat, waving to the crowd, and suddenly, bang.

[gun firing]

- A 38-caliber bullet tears through his chest

at near blank range.

They're convinced that Teddy's dead.

[rhythmic music]

- But within just a few seconds, he gets to his feet

and he realizes he's not dead.

He opens up his vest,

sees a little bit of blood on his shirt,

and then he pulls out his speech and his eyeglasses case.

- [Dan] A bullet at such close range, by all logic,

should be fatal.

But for Teddy Roosevelt,

something stands in the way of certain death, his verbosity.

- The case for his glasses is bent

and his 50-page folded up speech

has the bullet hole through it as well.

All of these things contributed

to slowing down the bullet just enough.

- It turns out that Roosevelt being both long-winded

and nearsighted probably saves his life.

- Of course, these days we take notes

and pay for our lunch with our smartphones,

but it turns out we can even count on new tech

to save our lives.

[suspenseful music]

Nimbin, New South Wales is a small, quiet town

known for open-mindedness, environmental awareness,

and strong support for the legalization of marijuana.

In other words, it's very chill.

It's one of the last places you'd expect to be attacked

by a rogue archer in your driveway.

[arrow thwacking target]

- A 44-year-old man pulls into his driveway

to see one of his neighbors armed with a bow and arrow.

- Australia is very well known

for having extremely tight restrictions

on the ownership of firearms.

However, no restriction whatsoever

on the possession or wielding of a bow and arrow.

- An argument ensues.

And as the situation gets more heated,

the bow wielder decides to draw back the arrow.

- The man who has the arrow being pointed at him,

he doesn't run, he doesn't try to defend himself.

He pulls out his phone to try and document the situation.

Just as he raises the phone to eye level,

the other man releases the arrow,

and the arrow hits the phone directly in front of his face,

and the force of it knocks him back.

[suspenseful music]

The arrow goes through the phone

and it does cause some minor lacerations on the guy's face.

But another fraction of a second

and basically he's impaled.

- The archer is brought into custody

and he makes a statement.

And in that statement, he says,

"I wasn't trying to kill the man.

I only wanted to maim him."

Had this been a flip phone, like an old boomer,

he would've never made it.

- So sometimes we're saved by a cell phone

or spared by solitary confinement.

We may beat the house or the grim reaper.

We may even win the lottery

while we're pretending to win the lottery.

So next time you're afraid to take a chance in life,

just remember that mankind's wild history

of beating the odds is truly Unbelievable.