The things you learn on Wikipedia

If it weren't for wikipedia, I would not have known that on this day in 1848 an iron bar "inch and a fourth in [diameter], and three feet and [seven] inches in length"  entered on the side of Phineas Gage's face just under his left cheekbone, passed behind his left eye and exited through the top of his skull. Mr. Gage lived for another 12 years and is noteworthy (according to wikipedia) for having been the first medically documented case of personality change due to brain injury.

I think it's noteworthy because he had a three-foot long iron rod go through his head in 1848, when doctoring consisted of a shot of whiskey and a rusty sewing needle, and lived to tell the tale.