UNBELIEVABLE! BUT TRUE,STRANGE BUT GREAT PEOPLE WITH A LOT OF MADNESS IN THEIR SYSTEM

OK, before you go on, I suggest you grab your favorite drink, make sure it's chilled, pop corn, grab a sit and feel relaxed, because you are about to read mind-blowing, unbelievable but true facts about these strange but great people and there fears...

1. CATHERINE THE GREAT (1729 - 96)

The empress of Russia was so terrified that the world would learn she had dandruff, she imprisoned her hairdresser in an iron cage for three years to stop her from blabbing.

2. RICHARD KIRWAN (1733 - 1812)

Irish linguist who was so afraid of flies he paid his servants an extra stipend for each one they delivered dead at his door in Dublin's Parnell Square.

3. HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1805 - 1875)

This author had many fears: fear of drowning, fear of being murdered, fear of dogs, fear of poverty and even fear of losing his passport. Before going to sleep at night he checked his bedside candle up to 20 times to make sure it was extinguished. His fear of fire was so intense that he brought a piece of rope with him anytime he was staying in an inn so that he could lower himself from a window with it if one started. He was so petrified about being alive that he used to leave a note beside his bed each night to be read by anyone finding him comatose. It said 'I only appear to be dead. I am in suspended animation. Cut one of my arteries before stealing my coffin.'

4. EDWARD LEAR (1812-1888)

The author and artist was terrified of horses and dogs.

5. FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (1821-81)

The Russian author was so terrified of being buried alive that whenever he was sleeping away from home he left a note beside his bed specifying that if he appeared to be dead he wasn't to be buried until exhaustive tests were performed on him.

6. PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-93) 

Had such a fear that his head would roll off his shoulders while he was conducting that he held his chin with his left hand during concerts.Such a phobia lasted his whole life long.

7. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL (1847-1922)

This Scottish educationist and inventor of the telephone kept his windows covered at night because he was afraid of the rays of the moon.

8. SIR HEREBERT DRAPER BEERBOHM TREE (1853-1917)

The witty and eccentric thespian travelled only once in a motorcar and was terrified by it he spent most of the journey on the floor peeping out the windows with his hands over his eyes.

9. SIGMUND FREUD (1865-1975)

The king of solving other people's fears had an unusual phobia of his own: a fear of trains.

10. P.G. WODEHOUSE (1881-1975)

When visiting his adopted daughter Leonora at her school outside London he often hid in the bushes outside the premises because he was afraid of here headmistress. He would lie there with a handkerchief on his head knotted at the four sides to protect himself from the sun, causimg her friends huge fits of giggles when they spotted him.

11. BELA LUGOSI (1882-1956) 

Famed for drinking blood in his role as Dracula, Lugosi was actually prone to fainting spells at the sight of his own blood.

12. ADOLF HITLER (1889-1945)

He had a terror that his father's mother had an affair with a Jew, resulting in the birth of his father Alois. This would have made him partly Jewish himself. Such suspicions fuelled his antisemitism.

13. KATHARINE HEPBURN (1907-2010)

The actress had such a phobia about germs she used to go around film sets sniffing the hair of her co-stars to make sure it was clean.

14. ELVIS PRESLEY (1935-77)

Girlfriends had to wait for the singer to fall asleep first every night as he hated being awake alone in the dark. This was one reason he lived like a nocturnal animal, usually only going to bedwhen the sun came up. 

15. MARVIN GAYE (1939-92) 

Suffered so much from stagefright that one night he even tried he even tried to climb out of the window of his dressing room to avoid having to face the public.

16 JOHN WATERS (1946-2010)

The film director fears electricity so much he thinks he'll die every time he plugs something in. He's also terrified to turn on heaters in case his house blows up. 

17. SAM SNEAD (1912-)

This American golfer has a terror of losing his hair and sometimes walks on his hands to stop the process, having read somewhere that a blood rush to the head would stimulate his follicles.