In some places, marriage to the first cousin is illegal - in others it is advised! Through history there have been many famous people who, for reasons known only to them, have married within the family. This is a list of 10 of the most famous people who have done this.

Jesse James married his first cousin Zerelda “Zee” Mimms, who was named after Jesse’s own mother. They had two children and remained married until Jesse’s death in 1882 at the age of 34.

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Having written a list on the ten most evil children in the world, I am very pleased to have received this submission of 7 children who are far from evil; they are children who have changed the world by their actions or examples.

Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank was a German-born Jewish girl from the city of Frankfurt. She gained international fame posthumously following the publication of her diary which documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Anne and her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933 after the Nazis gained power in Germany, and were trapped by the occupation of the Netherlands, which began in 1940. As persecutions against the Jewish population increased, the family went into hiding in July 1942 in hidden rooms in her father Otto Frank’s office building. After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Seven months after her arrest, Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, within days of the death of her sister, Margot Frank. Her father Otto, the only survivor of the group, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank has been acknowledged for the quality of her writing, and has become one of the most renowned and discussed of Holocaust victims.

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“I am not AN American,” Sam Clemens once quipped. “I am THE American.” Humorist, satirist and scathing social commentator, Mark Twain occupies a special place in the pantheon of American (and world) writers. Few have come close to matching his precision in lampooning the ills of society, but none have surpassed him. Here is a collection of twenty of his greatest quotations, though there are certainly hundreds to choose from. Enjoy!

1. Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself.

2. Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

3. The average American may not know who his grandfather was. But the American was, however, one degree better off than the average Frenchman who, as a rule, was in considerable doubt as to who his father was.

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George Carlin was a well loved comedian who won four grammy awards for his comedy albums. Carlin is noted for his political insights, his black humor and his observations on language, psychology, religion and on many taboo subjects. He died just 8 days ago, and this is our (listverse’s) tribute to him. Requiescat in pace.

1. I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

2. Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

3. I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

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Throughout the history of law, there have been trials of animals, convictions (and even occasional executions) of innocent people. Not so well known are these five cases of people put on trial after they were dead. So here we present the top five cases of the justice system gone wild.

Wycliffe was a dissident in the Catholic Church in the 1400s. He was opposed to Papal power in non-church affairs. In his lifetime he organized a translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible into English. Despite his teachings being extremely controversial, he was never excommunicated (kicked out of the Church). He died during Mass in December 1384. The Council of Constance declared Wycliffe (on 4 May 1415) a stiff-necked heretic and under the ban of the Church. It was decreed that his books be burned and his body be exhumed. The latter did not happen till twelve years afterward, when at the command of Pope Martin V they were dug up, burned, and the ashes cast into the River Swift that flows through Lutterworth.

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