History gets a bad rap as a dry subject. History can be fascinating when taught and understood correctly, and hidden throughout human history are extraordinary stories that would be difficult to believe if they weren’t so well-documented. One online community recently gathered many of these stories in one place, giving us an opportunity to review some of the most extraordinary and unbelievable events throughout human history.

What’s great about this list is that we get a truly broad range of regions and time periods. There’s tons of fascinating trivia in here to scratch that intellectual itch in your brain!

#1

Christmas day 1914. The truce on the WW1 battlefields.

Shows the humanity inside everyone, but they were able to wake up the next day and go straight back to war, kill the men that they’d spent a sincere day with.

This was the first thing I thought of and I’m surprised it’s not higher up.

nukalurk replied:

On paper it sounds like something out of a cheesy Christmas story or some feel-good childhood fairy tale about the “good and bad guys” just randomly deciding to stop fighting and get along, except it actually happened during one of the most horrific wars in human history – albeit temporarily.

Image credits: PotterWhoLock01

#2

Australia’s Emu war.

Not only is it hilarious that they went to war with a bird, but the fact that they lost to the birds is the cherry on top.

Image credits: SansyBoy144

#3

There was a Japanese man called Tsutomu Yamaguchi who was on his way to work in Hiroshima in 1945, when he saw falling through the sky, two miles from where he stood, what ultimately turned out to be the atomic bomb.

He had just enough time to take cover in a ditch as the bomb detonated and miraculously he survived. Somehow the Hiroshima train station was still operational and so Yamaguchi, battered, bombed and bruised, decided to board a train to his family home so he could recover – in Nagasaki.

3 days later Yamaguchi was called into work to explain what he saw, which he did. At work as he began to tell the story of what happened, the second bomb dropped.

It was the reinforced concrete walls around him that saved him this time, and Yamaguchi quickly ran to find his wife and son. Ground temperatures in the city reached 4,000°C and radioactive rain poured down.

The family’s home was destroyed, but Yamaguchi’s wife and son had thankfully been out shopping – looking for burn ointment for Yamaguchi – when the bomb fell, and they’d survived.

Despite this ordeal of having survived two nuclear explosions and subsequent radiation exposure, Yamaguchi went on to live till 93 yrs of age. He died in 2010 after being recognised by the Japanese government as a ‘nijyuu hibakusha’, or ‘twice-bombed person’.

Image credits: Voodizzy_

#4

The Battle of Halys

In roughly 6th century BC, the Medes and the Lydians were at war. The war had lasted for six years and climaxed at the Battle of Halys. During the battle, a solar eclipse began. Both sides believed that the Gods were angry at their long and bloody war, and were taking the sun away from them. They declared peace that day, and the sun was returned.

Image credits: TheRogueBear

#5

There would have been a third, and a nuclear, world war and possibly the end of the world if Stanislaw Petrow didn’t react like he did on the 25th of September 1983. In short: he was the only one that questioned the readings on the russian missle alert system and refused to launch nuclear counter-missiles.

Image credits: LW33

#6

St Olga of Kiev. Her story is the ultimate revenge tale

I highly recommend people looking her up but in short, her husband was killed by a neighbouring tribe and she sought vengeance.

The neighbouring faction then sought to take over her own, seeing as she was a weak woman and ruling in her dead husbands place as her own son was too young. She invited them to her town as a show of honour.

When the large party of messengers arrived, they were soon attacked and backed into a massive trench that Olgas people had dug the nights before.

Standing over the trench she asked them “If they found the honor to their taste” and buried them alive. But she wasn’t even close to finished with her quest for vengeance.

She sent message back to the enemy saying she would accept an allegiance by marriage. Painting herself as such a feeble woman, that she would gladly relinquish her power to her enemy. But she requested all high chieftains to visit her town, to socialise and garner favour.

The chieftains came, she invited them into the bath house to relax before a feast. They were locked inside and burned to death.

But she wasn’t done. Her next feat is her most incredible.

After taking out most people of power from the other faction. She demanded tribute from their towns and villages… Not in gold, not in any material goods. But in the form of sparrows and pigeons.

Thousands were delivered to her.

The next night, she ordered her soldiers to tie a strip of sulfur to the birds legs, set it alight, and released the birds.

The birds flew back to the houses and homes they had nested in. And burned every village to the ground.

The sky was apparently a blaze of fire for days. Olga emerged victorious, and satiated.

Don’t f**k with Olga of Kiev

She is known, quite aptly, as the patron saint of vengeance and defiance.

Image credits: horizon_hopper

#7

In 1944, during the allied invasion of France, 2 American paramedics, Ken Moore and Robert Wright, 101st Airborne, saved around 80 soldiers of both sides, allied and axis. They set themselves up in a church, had only what was in their first aid kits and medic bags, and had a strict no gun policy. The church was almost destroyed by a mortar shell, but it didn’t go off. It was almost destroyed again, due to friendly fire. Ken Moore would risk his life by venturing out of the church and finding injured soldiers, and both medics stayed behind at the church, even though the rest of their forces had to retreat. Wright took on the responsibility of looking after the soldiers.

The church still stands in Angoville-au-Plain, France, the blood stained pews are still there, and a broken tile from the mortar shell was never fixed, to honor the legacy of these men.

This is very simplified, and probably inaccurate in a few ways, but it is still an incredible story.

Image credits: JustACanadianGuy07

#8

My colleague was on the plane to Hawaii where the entire top of the plane ripped off… they flew the rest of the way without any overhead.. landed and everyone walked off. Absolutely insane to see the pictures. Talk about being given a 2nd chance..

que_he_hecho replied:

Aloha Airlines Flight 243 for those not familiar with it.

Not only could kids now not believe it, the public couldn’t hardly believe it at the time.

Only one death, a flight attendant who wasn’t buckled in a seat at the time the roof ripped off.

Image credits: SkydivingSquid

#9

In 1908 Russia showed up 12 days late to the Olympics because the world switched calenders while they did not.

Image credits: drailCA

#10

The Great Molasses Flood.

“A large storage tank filled with 2.3 million U.S. gallons (8,700 cubic meters)[4] of molasses, weighing approximately[b] 13,000 short tons (12,000 metric tons), burst, and the resultant wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour), killing 21 people and injuring 150.[5] The event entered local folklore and residents claimed for decades afterwards that the area still smelled of molasses on hot summer days”

Image credits: meb4mak

#11

When the pyramids were being built, woolly mammoths still existed.

The last use of the guillotine in France was the same year Star Wars was founded

Image credits: TooYoungToBeThisOld1

#12

In 1903, The New York Times published an article about flying machines. They stated that it would take the combined efforts of all Mathematicians and mechanics 1-to-10 million years for powered flight to be achieved.

Anyway, about 9 weeks later, the Wright brothers achieved powered flight for the first time.

They were also overly cynical afterwards, In 1910 they said that flight would only ever be for billionaires, of course we had commercial flights by around the 60s achievable for many.

Image credits: Joe_PM2804

#13

The Four Pests Campaign.
===

Mao Zedong, in his infinite hubris, thought that there would be no repercussions from an attempt to completely eliminate rats, flies, mosquitos, and sparrows. Plot twist: there were repercussions.

Millions of people organized into groups, and hit noisy pots and pans to prevent sparrows from resting in their nests, with the goal of causing them to drop dead from exhaustion.

Sparrows were replaced with bed bugs, as the extermination of sparrows had upset the ecological balance, which subsequently resulted in surging locust and insect populations that destroyed crops due to a lack of a natural predator.

The ecological disruption was one of several factors that led to a famine that killed 45 million people.

Image credits: dustractor

#14

That time everyone died of a dancing sickness where they danced themselves to death in France. Mass hysteria.

ENFJPLinguaphile replied:

Yup! St. Vitus’ Dance, as it is called, still doesn’t have a definitely known cause, if I remember correctly, either! Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, please!

New research as of 2021 shows Sydenham chorea as the most likely cause.

Image credits: DavinaCole

#15

1816, The Year Without Summer.

The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F).[1] Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest of any on record between the years of 1766 and 2000.[2] This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.[3]

Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies.

Image credits: theassassintherapist

#16

There was another plane that would have hit the Capitol on 9/11. The passengers took over the plane from the hijackers and crashed it in an open field.

Image credits: Qbking333

#17

On the 24th of June 2023, the most important Russian mercenary group marched on Moscow, just to give up a few hours later.

#18

The Kentucky meat shower. Bunch of mystery meat fell out of the sky and no one had a clue what it was but they still ate it as they saw it as a blessing from god.

TheMongooser replied:
Wasn’t that vulture vomit?

WorldClassKlutz replied:

Correct, but that was only recently figured out.

Image credits: Boring-Emu1130

#19

The climactic explosion of the 1883 Krakatoa eruption, the loudest sound in recorded history. 50 miles away eardrums ruptured. Sailors 3,000 miles away thought it was a cannon. The pressure wave circled the entire planet more than three times.

#20

The Battle of Bull Run, one of the first battles of the US Civil War, occurred on and around Wilmer McClean’s farm in Northern Virginia. Not wanting to live surrounded by war, McClean and his family moved to Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse was the last significant battle between Union and Confederate forces. The Confederates signed the surrender order in Wilmer’s sitting room. It is said that the Civil War started on Wilmer’s farm and ended in his sitting room.

#21

This happened in Buenos Aires in 1988. An elderly woman named Marta Espina was walking near a carpet store when a toy poodle named Cachy fell from a 13th-floor balcony and tragically landed on her head, causing her immediate death. Unfortunately, Cachy also didn’t survive the fall.
But the events didn’t end there. Another woman named Edith Solá, driven by curiosity or a desire to help, rushed across the street only to be struck by a bus from the 55 bus line. This marked the second fatality caused by Cachy’s fall.
And incredibly, there was yet another death. The identity of the third victim remains unknown, but reports indicate that a man suffered a heart attack while witnessing the entire incident unfold at Rivadavia street. He passed away in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

You guys can look it up. Crazy but true.

Image credits: biomarino13

#22

Roman emperor Caligula declared war on Neptune, god of the sea, and had the waves whipped and stabbed. His soldiers were ordered to collect seashells as prizes of war.

Image credits: Cocodrool

#23

During the salem witch trials, a man named giles cory was pressed to death with boards and stones to try to force a confession out of him. When asked for a plea, he simply said, “more weight.” He never confessed, so he was never convicted as a witch, and his land passed to his son in laws instead of to the government.

#24

Most likely when the conquistadors under cortez wanted to build catapults to attack Tenochtitlan. After convincing him to halt the assault they built 2.

Unfortunately they didn’t actually have any siege masters who actually knew how to build them but just a dude who was convinced he knew how.

When they fired them they threw the boulders straight up and they landed right in front of the catapults. This caused much confusion to the inhabitants of the city.

The incident was recorded by both sides.

I like to believe it inspired the character of wil e coyote.

#25

In 2014, Pope Francis released doves in the Vatican to symbolize his hopes for peace in the world. As soon as the doves began to fly, a seagull and a crow swooped down and attacked them in front of everyone.

Image credits: medievalistbooknerd

#26

The man who ordered all flights to be grounded on September 11, 2001, was Benedict Sliney, the FAA’s National Operations Manager. He made his decision largely by himself, and with limited advice from his aides.

It was his first day as National Operations Manager.

#27

I’m gonna go with when a country violently murdered and then proceeded to eat the man that was leading their country. The brutal end of Johann de Witt.

A description is as follows

“After having mangled, and torn, and completely stripped the two brothers, the mob dragged their naked and bloody bodies to an extemporised gibbet, where amateur executioners hung them up by the feet.

Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all, who not having dared to strike the living flesh, cut the dead in pieces, and then went about the town selling small slices of the bodies of John and Cornelius at ten sous a piece.”

The people capable of such a heinous crime?

No one else then the absolute savages from our overseas neighbors in…you guessed it…Holland.

Image credits: huggles7

#28

The CIA sent hundreds of assassins after Fidel Castro. Plenty of cartoonishly silly plans too, from exploding cigars to poison hair.

One of the best recorded attempts was when they sent a female spy to seduce him and then murder him when he’s not looking.

But in the bedroom when he realized her plan, he turned his back to her, she prepared to strike, he grabbed a cigar and told her “if your gonna kill me then do it already”. She just stood there shocked, said she couldn’t do it. Castro was like “yea ofcourse not” and they just had passionate sex instead. Wild story straight from the CIA records of the woman lol

Image credits: alext06

#29

Nicholas Alkemade fell 18,000 feet without a parachute from a burning plane in 1944 and suffered no serious injury.

Image credits: hazps

#30

The fact that there was a Volcanic winter 70,000 years ago which almost made Homo Sapiens extinct.
Estimates range from 1000 to 40 survivors repopulating the Earth.

#31

The Ghost Army in WWII. Essentially an American group of troops would deploy “dummy” tanks, broadcast fake radio chatter, and deploy loud sound effects over speakers to fool the Nazis into thinking there was a large military presence coming their way. The Ghost Army was used to deceive the Nazis and make them send their military presence elsewhere, which provided openings for the real Allied forces to move in. This was used in the later parts of the war.

I never learned about this in school but I discovered it on my own and thought it was fascinating. Imagine thinking a whole mess of tanks are heading your way but in reality, it’s a couple of inflatable dummies and a few speakers.

Image credits: tarheel_204

#32

Halley’s Comet appeared in the sky when Mark Twain was born in 1835. The comet moves in a seventy-five or seventy-six-year orbit, and, as it neared Earth once again, Twain said “I came in with Halley’s Comet and I expect to go out with it.” Sure enough, he died on April 21, 1910, just as the comet made its next pass within sight of Earth.

Image credits: SuvenPan

#33

The masses marching to the Berlin Wall and tearing it down only happened because earlier that day during a press conference, an East German official (Günther Schabowski) accidentally incorrectly said leaving East Germany was legal, effective *immediately*.

*”As far as I know this becomes effective..it is right away, immediately”* is still a famous thing to say in Germany.

It would eventually have happened anyway BUT it wasn’t legal yet. However people just did it anyways because the guy got visibly confused during the press conference, and said the wrong thing.

#34

Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a fall of 75 stories while in an elevator in 1945.

Image credits: Meh_M-E-H

#35

The Nutmeg Wars.
The Dutch and the English went to war THREE times over nutmeg, which at the time was only known to grow on one South Pacific island.

#36

The swedish king Gustav II. had to wear glasses (like… badly) but was too vain and refused. In battle, he proceeded to lose his direction and got lost in the smoke, leading him to land behind the enemy’s lines. Needless to say he didn’t survive that.
So essentially he died because he didn’t want to wear his glasses. Wear your glasses, kids. Life is short (and so is your sight)

#37

Ocean liner stewardess/nurse Violet Jessop survived the sinkings of the Titanic in 1912 & the Britannic in 1916 and was onboard the Olympic when it collided with another ship in 1911. Not really one event but a very impressive/scary track record.

Image credits: thatrlyoatsmymilk

#38

Everything having to do with Mad Jack Churchill. He reads like someone’s self-insert OC in a historical fiction based on WWII, except he’s all real.

He was a Brit who fought in World War II without guns, instead preferring a longbow, a claymore sword, and bagpipes. Despite this, he won. A lot. He single-handedly took a whole village back from the Nazis by taking his shirt off and stealthing around to scare the c**p out of them with his sword. After the Nazis captured him one time and held him prisoner, (under the mistaken belief he was related to Winston Churchill,) the prison was raided by the Allies and he was set free…or he would have, had he not already escaped 2 weeks prior. He was on the beach on D-Day, with men under his command, and held them up in their boat while he played a song on the bagpipes, finished, lobbed a grenade onto the beach, and then charged. The war ended, and he was bored, so he went to the Pacific to go fight the Japanese. That ended too, so he got bored in retirement *and invented river surfing*.

This is just a scrap of the historical anomaly that is Mad Jack Churchill.

#39

In 1950 the United States government, particularly the United States Navy, released pathogens on the civilian population of the city of San Francisco causing illness and death including legionnaires disease. They did it intentionally in order to study how such a weaponized bacterial agent could be dispersed through fog rolling in to a city’s population. Google Operation Sea spray. God bless America.

EDIT: it has been pointed out to me that I am mistaken about the legionnaires disease part. Apparently legionnaires disease was not included in the operation. The rest is true.

Image credits: Inevitable_Shift1365

#40

Harrison Odjegba Okene – the Nigerian man who survived for 3 days inside an air pocket inside of a sunken ship in the Atlantic.

Divers went down to recover bodies and investigate, and they discovered and rescued him. There is footage from the diver rescue.

#41

Vesna Vulović fell from a commercial aircraft’s cruise flight altitude of 10 000 meters (about 30 000 ft) in 1972. She not only survived, she actually lived normally for over 40 years more with nothing more than a limp. (after a rather lengthy recovery process, of course)

#42

Lenin’s body being put on display for 100 years (literally he died in 1924).

Image credits: Mythicaldragons0

#43

The war between the Scilly Islands and the Netherlands lasted from 1651 to 1986. That is 335 years and the longest known war in history.

Image credits: ahnotme

#44

The PA police dropping a C-4 bomb on a house that held the organizers of the MOVE movement killing 11 including 5 Children and destroying 61 homes in a two block area. May 13 1985

#45

The US gave a bunch of black people syphilis without them knowing in order to conduct “research”. Aka the Tuskegee Project.

Image credits: fellowsquare

#46

Edwin Booth brother of John Wilkes Booth saved the life of Robert the son of president Abraham Lincoln.

#47

I still find it totally insane that we were able to put men on the moon with the technology of the time. It blows my mind. Probably the greatest of all human achievement.

#48

Tiananmen square massacre, 1989

Before the fateful date arrives, the CCP goes to extra lengths to cover up any mention of the events in 1989. It is a known fact that the Chinese censor the numbers June 3, June 4 and Tiananmen Square. Any attempt to search the events generally results in blank pages on the Chinese internet.

#49

At the Battle of Dorylaeum during the First Crusade, Bohemond Of Taranto ordered his troops to stand still for eight hours in the baking sun in order to defeat Kilij Arslan. He crushed Kilij Arslan’s forces.

During another battle, Bohemond’s men hadn’t eaten for two weeks because they were besieged inside a fort they’d captured. None of them were in fighting order and they no longer had cavalry for the knights, so he asked the Papal legate, Ademar of Puy, what he should do. Ademar of Puy “spoke to God” and said God told him that the men shouldn’t eat for another week. The only way to fight the Muslims was to march his dying infantry straight out of the castle gates and use inferior infantry tactics against cavalry by running straight at them. It was guaranteed that they were going to lose. Again, they crushed the Muslims.

The entirety of the First Crusade is insane and it’s a miracle that the Christians won because they did absolutely nothing right. It’s a perfect example of continually falling upwards.

**edit: for those questioning the validity of the claims made herein, and questioning whether or not they were exaggerated by the victors, they weren’t. The two main chroniclers of the First Crusade were the Arab-Muslims and Greek Byzantines, both of whom hated the Crusaders to such a degree, that the latter actually wanted the Muslims to retake the Holy Land because the Western Europeans were so barbaric in comparison. In fact, some of the Muslims were so blindsided by how effective the Crusaders were, that they believed they were being punished by God for their excesses. As for the Christians, their main source of historical records were simply letters sent back and forth between clergymen and the Pope to update him on the Crusades.**

#50

That the British used to just f*****g eat mummies.

#51

John the Blind King of Bohemia insisted on fighting in the battle and had his aides tie their horses together so they were not separated. He asked to be taken to where the battle was the loudest. The next day they were all found dead with their horses still tied together.

#52

The Time Indiana tried to legislate the value of Pi.

#53

Michael Malloy AKA Mike the Durable AKA Iron Mike.

During the Great Depression, five men took out a life insurance policy on a homeless alcoholic that they were sure was going to drink himself to death. The owner of a bar allowed him to drink for free, but he kept drinking and didn’t die. So they tried to poison him with antifreeze. Didn’t work. The turpentine, horse liniment, rat poison, methanol….still didn’t work. A sandwich made with rotten sardines and tacks. Still no luck.

Then they took his drunk body out in the cold and poured water on him. He lived.

Then they ran him over with a car. He was in the hospital for three weeks, but survived.

Then they poisoned him with carbon monoxide, and he finally died.

They were all convicted of murder.

#54

During Alexander the Great’s destruction of the Mediterranean he was going to leave a small island named Tyre for later as it would’ve been hard to besiege it but the people of Tyre laughed and mocked him so he literally built a bridge to their island and conquered it ?

Image credits: CoolToko

#55

The USA banned alcohol for about 10 years

The British government bought the ENTIRE WORLD’S tea crop for one year (as in every ounce produced in every country in the world was purchased by them), in the middle of WWII, just because

King George III was against the Stamp Act and when it was repealed by a politician he supported, a statue of the king was paid for and put up in NY by the people there in thanks (pre-Revolution)

#56

Meteor striking the ground between two armies about to go to battle in 74 B.C.

#57

On 1 February 1942, following a bombing raid on the Marshall Islands, the Enterprise came under attack by five twin-engine Japanese bombers. The lead aircraft, led by Lieutenant Kazuo Nakai, badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire, turned back towards the Enterprise, attempting to ram it. Seeing this, Gaido abandoned his watch post and jumped in a nearby Dauntless parked on the flight deck, and returned fire using the rear-facing 30 caliber machine gun. His fire disabled the aircraft, causing it to narrowly miss the Enterprise, only hitting parked aircraft (including the one Gaido was in) before spiraling into the sea. Upon seeing this act, Vice Admiral William Halsey spot-promoted him to aviation machinist mate first class.

#58

During WWII Kaiser Shipyards in Vancouver, WA completed 50 Casablanca Class Escort Aircraft Carriers in under two years.

#59

Black Monday. A hailstorm killed around a thousand English soldiers in 1360. More than had died in the entire war up to that point.

#60

Theodore Roosevelt found his boat was stolen. So he built a new boat, tracked the thieves down and arrested them. He then proceeded to walk them multiple days, without sleeping, so they could receive a trial instead of just shooting them on the spot.

It was in the middle of a harsh winter so he didn’t handcuff them (for fear they’d get frostbite) so instead he just kept himself awake by reading Tolstoy with a gun trained on them the whole trek.

#61

On December 5th, 1664, a man named Hugh Williams was the only survivor of a shipwreck.

On December 5th, 1785, a man named Hugh Williams was the only survivor of a shipwreck.

On December 5th, 1820, a man named Hugh Williams was the only survivor of a shipwreck.

#62

Gobekli-Tepe

THis structure predates everything. Between c. 9500 and 8000 BCE, the site comprises a number of large circular structures supported by massive stone pillars – the world’s oldest known megaliths.
Most historians did not think we were working stone to this degree at this time. It makes Stonehenge look like a 50 piece puzzle.
Many scientists insist this is not dated correctly because it upsets their world view.
A very good read.

#63

One of my favorites is the War of the Worlds radio broadcast from 1938. in which an H.G. Wells novel caused panic and hysteria because people believed it was a genuine news broadcast and not fiction. People believed Martians were really invading the world.

Edit: As some have said, this event did happen, but it was overblown by the newspapers trying to make radio broadcasting look bad. The program had very few listeners and even less people who believed it was real. Still, there was that lucky few who got a “little” confused.

#64

A US President Roosevelt issued an executive order that made it illegal for US citizens to keep US gold coins. They made everyone return them or be subject to imprisonment and large fine. The government confiscated over 2,600 metric tons.

#65

An earthquake in middle USA 1811-12 was the strongest earthquake ever in the eastern US. It changed the course of the Mississippi River…

#66

The sinking of the Titanic. It sounds like a story, all the parts of it from beginning to end are cinematic, but it really happened!

#67

The city of Babylon.

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