13. The first person to survive a drop over Niagara Falls was an American Schoolmistress.
On October 24, 1901, American schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor decided to celebrate her 63rdbirthday most unusually by launching herself in a barrel off the top of Horseshoe Falls, the largest of Niagara Falls three waterfalls. A large crowd gathered, confident they would be witnessing the schoolmistress’s inevitable death as the barrel plummeted down the 51-meter drop. However, cuts and bruises aside, Ms. Taylor made it intact- the first person to do so at Niagara Falls.