kim peek, whom actor dustin hoffman based his character in 'rain man' on, literally memorized everything that he experienced in his entire life until his death in 2009. he could recite any of the 12,000 books that he had seen word-for-word. if you told him what town you lived in, he would tell you what tv stations were available there, the name of every street, the name of the county, the zip code, the names of any telephone providers, and the local history.

he had this ability due to a congenital birth defect.