After WWI, the Australian military started “The Great Emu War” where they tried to cull emus with machine guns. Six days after the first engagement, 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired and no emu was killed. It was declared an emu victory in the end. – Source
2. In the entire state of Ohio in 1895, there were only two cars on the road, and the drivers of these two cars crashed into each other. – Source
3. In the late 1700’s, a letter appeared in the major London newspaper complaining that England was being forced to take deported French prisoners. The British were furious and wanted it stopped. The French became upset because the uproar implied that England was too good for French prisoners. Both governments became involved, and they were on the brink of war before it all unraveled as a hoax. The original letter, it was learned years later, had been written by Benjamin Franklin, who was spending six months in England as an ambassador and was simply bored, just stirring up trouble and sitting back and watching.
4. The first “Mooning” in recorded history was 66 AD, where a Roman solider mooned Jewish pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. This caused a riot, an over-response by the Roman military, and the death of thousands. – Source
5. In 1821, Greece was under the control by the Turks. In Greece’s fight for independence, a Turkish garrison was besieged by Greek fighters on the Acropolis. When the Turks were running short on bullets, they began to dismantle the marble columns to use the lead within as bullets. The Greeks sent them ammunition with the message: “Here are bullets, don’t touch the columns.” – Source6. Early in the Spanish Civil War, there was a Nationalist garrison under siege. Having local air superiority, Nationalists decided to airdrop supplies. The humor comes from their chosen method of making sure the packages got to the ground without being damaged. They didn’t use a parachute, but instead they strapped a turkey to each package. It couldn’t carry the load, but it could slow it a bit on the way down and unlike a parachute, you can eat a turkey. – Source
7. During Liechtenstein’s last military engagement in 1886, none of the 80 soldiers sent were injured, and 81 returned, including a new Italian ‘friend’. – Source
8. During the French Revolution when members of the Third Estate stormed the Bastille, they freed a grand total of 7 prisoners (they were the only ones in there at the time) and one of them was a drunk, lunatic Irish guy named Whyte de Malleville who had no idea what was going on.
9. During the opium war, the Chinese set monkeys on fire and launched them at British ships in an attempt to cause chaos. – Source
10. Between the announcement of Germany’s surrender during WW2 on radio to Joseph Stalin addressing of the nation 22 hours later, Russia literally ran out of vodka. – Source
11. The direct cause of World War 1 was Archduke Ferdinand of Austria’s assassination. What many people don’t know is that the initial assassination attempt failed when the bomb blew up the car behind Ferdinand’s. The only reason he was assassinated is because one of the terrorists (a Serbian organization called the Black Hand) stopped to buy a sandwich and saw Ferdinand in the store. – Source
12. Also, the man who threw the grenade that blew up the car behind Franz Ferdinand did not know the grenade had a 10 second timer. It gets better. He took the cyanide supplied by the Black Hand to kill himself after the attempt, and it was expired, so he just ended up throwing up a bunch. To “seal the deal” of death, he jumped into a near-by canal that was only two inches deep. It didn’t turn out so great for him.
13. In WWII, two bombing squadrons were sent by American to the same location to bomb it, except one of them accidentally showed up thousands of feet lower down than the other one. Neither of them saw each other until they had already started bombing. Miraculously, none of the lower planes were hit by the higher planes, and the Germans all thought they had come up with an ingenious bombing strategy to bomb an area twice as much. It scared the Germans that the Allies had this level of skill.
14. During the WW2, in the Battle of Crete where the New Zealand Maori battalion were holed up facing a German unit in an orchard. The Germans thought they would try and spook the enemy by having their commanders yell out the order to ‘fix bayonets’ in preparation of a bayonet charge. When the Maori heard this they started cheering (personal close combat was held in great prestige). The Germans decided not to charge and quietly retreated. The name Māori was almost a byword with the British Soldiers. Their continual bayonet charges and the havoc they caused among the Germans with cold steel earned them the name of the ‘Knife Men.’
15. Caligula (Roman Emperor) once held a large meeting solely for the purpose to tell the attendants, that if he wanted he can have them all killed. Then dismissed the meeting. He also waged war against Poseidon. He led 10,000 soldiers to the sea and ordered them to stab it with spears. He once marched his entire army towards the English Channel in an effort to invade Britain. Upon arrival to the channel, he decided that he no longer wished to invade Britain so he ordered his men to collect sea shells before heading home. – Source
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