Emily Dickinson became so extravagantly reclusive in the second half of her life that for the last ten years she did not once leave her house.

A 38-year-old nun used to be a lap-dancer, and spent many years working in Italian nightclubs. She now uses her talents in a rather different way - for what she calls "The Holy Dance" a performance on Tuesday evenings at the Holy Cross in Jerusalem Basilica in Rome, in front of senior Catholic clerics.

A once-famous mind reader is hungry for a comeback.

He was a wealthy and powerful man, with knowledge of metal working, who had travelled to Salisbury from Alpine Europe, for reasons unknown. Post mortem examinations show that he suffered from both a serious knee injury and a potentially fatal dental problem, leading to conclude that he came to Stonehenge to be healed.

A 33-year-old woman poses as her 15-year-old daughter to return to high school as a cheerleader.

A boy aged 12 stabs his six-month-old stepbrother to death in his cot and cuts off his hand. He is since in a prison hospital, where it is decided that he should not be left alone with female members of staff after he asked a woman who worked there for sex, then asked if there was "anyone else available" when his request was refused. He is however allowed to build a vast collection of horror and pornographic DVDs.

A New York teacher has apologised for taking sick leave to pursue a secret other life as a professional wrestler.

The young man wants to be the first amputee runner to compete in the Olympics. He was born without the fibula bone in his lower legs and with other defects in his feet. He had both legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old. At 20, his coach says, he is like a five-speed engine with no second gear.

News about the emperor suffering from prostate cancer mark a break with tradition for the highly secretive imperial household. The previous emperor died in 1989 before it was revealed that he too had been suffering from cancer. The new emperor is considered to have more liberal and forward-thinking views than his father.

A female Thai prisoner boosts her chances of freedom by winning the world light flyweight boxing title.

A larger than life character, fabulously rich, with a ruthless mind, and a beautiful and glamorous wife, is one of Britain's best known businessmen. But if found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in a US jail.

A two-year-old boy was abandoned in the dense jungle. A colony of African Green monkeys came across him and adopted him as one of their own. He learnt their mannerisms, became adept at climbing trees and lived on a diet of fruit, nuts and berries for the next three years. A tribeswoman saw him scavenging for food with the chimps and reported it to the people in her village. For the last eight years, he has been taught to speak, has learned human ways - and as he began to utter his first words, it was discovered he had a fine singing voice.

A Cambodian girl who disappeared aged eight was found after living wild in the jungle for 19 years. She disappeared while tending buffalo on the edge of the jungle. Her father identified her through scars; she was "half-human and half-animal" and could not speak any intelligible language.

Caprice Valerie Bourret was born on October 24, 1971, and raised in a modest three-bedroom bungalow in a suburb of Los Angeles by her mother Valerie.

In August 1941, Mina boyce, a 21-year-old widow and an alcoholic, handed her baby over to social workers. Over the next seven years, the child lived in seven foster homes and then was locked in an institution for people with mental retardation. There he would stay until the staff finally agreed that he was safe to leave, 11 years later.

Living an isolated life in England and, by many accounts, drinking heavily, the German writer died at home on or about February 23, 1984, but his body was not discovered until some three weeks later.

“Bring the blood to the wounded, not the other way around” was the premise of the Canadian doctor who invented the first mobile blood-transfusion unit. After cutting himself while performing an operation without gloves, he died of blood poisoning in 1939.

A revered mystic who cursed Saddam Hussein, criticized Madonna and influenced Israeli elections, has died of pneumonia. He was believed to be about 106.

A woman falls into a coma as a young girl, just shortly after she had some visions of the future. She wakes up just in time to experience that future, as if she did not need the time in between.

A woman with a very boring job. At night however, she and a male partner cruise the bars as swingers. After a time, she begins to believe that a conspiracy exists and decides that she must become a born-again Christian.

A brilliant mathematician manages to break the Enigma code, used by the Germans to send secret orders to their U-boats in World War II. He is also a homosexual in Britain at a time when this was illegal, besides being a security risk. The authorities decide that it is time to get him out of the way.

The popular and macho captain of the high-school soccer team is forced to confront his homosexuality, after his buddies discover a male-pornography magazine in his bedroom.

A mother of ten children going through a domestic nightmare because of her bitter, self-loathing husband, enters and wins a television contest and her winnings in cash keep the family afloat financially and spiritually.

A young nurse meets a world-famous painter when he is recovering from intestinal cancer. He asks her to pose for him, and she consents. Although dismayed by the portrait he produced, the drawing becomes one of the masterpieces of contemporary art.

A man in his forties is going to die and remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments but things that also tell the recent history of his country.