History Weird stuff in history

[[19th] Fringo 0]

This thread is dedicated to anything weird that supposedly happened throughout history. I'm talking weird people, events, customs, etc.

 

I'll start with Dancing Mania, or Dancing Plague. This was a phenomenon of the later middle ages and early modern period in mainland europe, where large groups of people would start dancing for seemingly no reason, and would often not stop until they dropped dead of exhaustion. No one knows what caused this.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067360960386X/fulltext

[[19th] Fringo 0]

 

Timothy Dexter was an eccentric American businessman of the 18th century. Some of the weird stuff he did included:

Sending bedwarmers and mittens to the tropical West Indes (The bedwarmers were used as ladles, and the mittens were bought by Asian merchants and sold in Siberia, making Dexter a large profit)

Took a joke to ship coal to Newcastle seriously, and sent a large amount of coal to the coal mining town of Newcastle. This arrived during a large miners strike and was sold at premium rates.

He told everyone in the town he lived that his wife had died, and the figure they saw every day about town was just her ghost.

He faked his own death to see how people would respond. 3000 people attended the wake, but his wife didnt cry enough so he caned her.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter

[Scandypandy 78]

Pepsi at one point had the 6th largest military fleet on the planet.

During the cold war America and Russia were constantly trying prove one another that eachothers lifestyles were superior. During an "American National Expedition" held in 1959 in Moscow, the Vice President of Pepsi Marketing gave Khruschev a cup of pepsi.

The photo (below) became a point of huge advertisement for Pepsi, however the best was yet to come. Due to Russia's inability to pay for Pepsi-which had since become the Soviet's equivilant and rival of All-American Coca Cola-the USSR decided to try paying with vodka which then meant that Pepsi became (I believe) Russia's first American Product available to the masses.

With the massive surge of Pepsi in the USSR, the deal needed renewal in 1989 which presented problems as Vodka alone could no longer pay for the sheer volume of Pepsi being imported and produced. Therefore, they looked to something else they had in surplus; warships.
Pepsi was given access to a military fleet of ships which meant that at one point Pepsi had:

-17 Submarines
-1 Cruiser
-1 Frigate
-1 Destroyer

and was thus the 6th largest military power on the planet.
In a famous quote to the National Security Advisor of the US, Donald Kendall said "we are disarming the russians faster than you can."

[Shephard 15]

There was an Australian man who served in Gallipoli in 1915 and created a mechanism for a makeshift self firing rifle when the Brits began to retreat, to fool the Turks into thinking they were still manning the trench. It worked by having 2 cans with one filled with water dripping into the other, tied to the trigger, eventually the weight would be enough to pull the trigger when the soldiers were long gone. These were called drip rifles.       https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Scurry

[goose 0]

I think a lot of people know this one, but 'Mad Jack' Churchill the british officer who fought in WW2 with a broadsword, bagpipes, and longbow. British people are crazy

[Scandypandy 78]

17 minutes ago, goose said:

I think a lot of people know this one, but 'Mad Jack' Churchill the british officer who fought in WW2 with a broadsword, bagpipes, and longbow. British people are crazy

He was pretty rad. He was captured twice by the germans and escaped twice (once from a concentration camp), on the second occasion he walked for miles and miles alone to reach a friendly line.
He was also notably angered by the nuking of Japan because he wanted the war to keep going.

[[19th] Fringo 0]

One of my favourites was when Liechtenstein sent their 80 man army to watch the Italian border in the Austro-Prussian War, and came back with 81 as they'd befriended an Italian while they were there.

[Jak_Zawsze 1]

My favorite king of France

[Chinese_Propaganda 46]

In my opinion, the most interesting time period was the Romans and during those times there were many weird laws. Such as fathers could only sell their sons into slavery three times, fathers could legally kill their whole family and that women were forbidden from crying at funerals. 

[Pew Pew You're Dead 39]

>when your country is going through a famine so you decide not to eat and you get independence

 

[Pew Pew You're Dead 39]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Thomas_(soldier)

[WaterPolo 92]

ehuuuu

[goose 0]

On June 20, 1940, Soviet archaeologists uncovered the tomb of Tamerlane, a descendent of Genghis Khan. A warning inscription read "Whoever opens my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I." They opened it anyway. Germany invaded the Soviet Union two days later.

[goose 0]

This one isn’t also pretty sp00ky. The first worker to die during the Hoover dam's construction was J.G. Tierny on December 20, 1922. The last person to die there was J.G. Tierny's son, who died on December 20, 1935.

 

 

[goose 0]

Hitler was born 129 years after Napoleon. He also came to power 129 years after Napoleon, invaded Russia 129 years after Napoleon, and was defeated 129 years after Napoleon.

 

earth is flat: confirmed 

[goose 0]

You Wojtek: The Soldier Bear

 

A Syrian Brown Bear named Wotjek was a cub when he was found by Polish Soldiers in WW2 after his mother had been shot. He was raised by the Poland Corps, and soldiers would wrestle and sleep with the Wotjek as he accompanied them in Battles and in their free time. They eventually said that he can’t go with them, so they enlisted him into the Polish Army as a soldier (as a private ) so that he could have transportation and rations. In Italy, at the battle of Monte Cassino, Wotjek was accompanying the 22nd Artillery Company. He watched soldiers carry ammunition and supplies for the artillery, and eventually he mimicked their actions, picking up artillery shells and carrying them towards the artillery. Wotjek ended his military career after the war at the rank of Corporal. Wotjek lived in the Edinborough Zoo for the rest of his life, until he passed away at the age of 22. Wotjek is a Slavic name that means “Happy Warrior”. The 22nd artillery company also changed their badges to a Bear carrying artillery shells.

[goose 0]

Stalin, Hitler, and Franz Josef, who are collectively responsible for about 80 million deaths, all lived in Vienna at the same time.

[Pew Pew You're Dead 39]

ive seen all of these on those shitty fact things people share on facebook

[goose 0]

Ew facebook 

[Shrek 0]

On 2/8/2018 at 6:21 AM, goose said:

Stalin, Hitler, and Franz Josef, who are collectively responsible for about 80 million deaths, all lived in Vienna at the same time.

 

Don't forget Trotsky,Freud and Tito. All 3 of which also lived in Vienna at that time.

[goose 0]

very sp00ky

[Sam 4]

The bucket war.

 Modena vs Bologna.

 Modena had the support of the HRE and Bologna the support of the pope.

after multiple small wars, some Modenan soldiers snuck into Bologna and stole a bucket from a well, Bologna declared war,

2000 people died over a bucket...