Columns Saved by Ammunition
26. In 1821, Greece was under Turkish control. As Greeks fought for independence, a Turkish garrison on the Acropolis was surrounded by Greek fighters. When the Turks were low on bullets, they started taking apart the marble columns to use the lead inside as ammunition. The Greeks then sent them bullets with the message: “Here are bullets, don’t touch the columns.”
27. During World War 2, the Soviet Union trained dogs to destroy German tanks by starving them and then putting food beneath tanks, so the dogs learned that food would be under tanks. In battle, the Russians attached explosives to them and released them. Because the Russians trained them using their own tanks, the dogs often ran under Russian tanks instead and blew them up, killing Russian soldiers. The program was soon stopped.
28. Joseph Stalin sent multiple assassins to kill Yugoslavia’s dictator Josip Broz Tito. After the fifth attempt failed, Tito wrote to Stalin: “Stop sending people to kill me. We’ve already captured 5 of them, one with a bomb and another with a rifle. If you don’t stop sending killers, I’ll send one to Moscow and I won’t have to send a second.”
29. In the 1300s, some men from Modena stole a bucket from Bologna, both in Italy, and this deeply humiliated the people of Bologna. They declared war, fought a battle that caused about 2,000 casualties split between the two sides, and still did not get the bucket back.
30. In the late 1910s, the British Army was trying to arrest Michael Collins because he was part of Dáil Eireann, an Irish state government that the British did not recognize since they had not granted Ireland independence. Collins was the head of intelligence and oversaw IRA hit squads, so he was a major target for the British. You would expect him to hide somewhere, but he instead cycled through Dublin in full view because the British army did not know what he looked like.
31. Before the stethoscope existed, doctors would literally place their ears against patients’ chests to listen. This inspired French physician René Laennec to invent the stethoscope because he felt too embarrassed to tap a female patient’s chest to check her heartbeat. He instead rolled up a sheet of paper into a tube and put it on her chest. It worked, and that is how the stethoscope was created.
32. When the Third Estate members stormed the Bastille and began the French Revolution, the notorious fortress prison contained only seven elderly men, and none were political prisoners. They were the only inmates there at the time, and one was a drunken, deranged Irishman named Whyte de Malleville who had no idea what was happening.
33. The only war ever fought between humans and animals was the Australian military against emus. In 1932, the Australian military launched the Great Emu War, trying to reduce the emu population with machine guns. Six days after the first clash, 2,500 rounds had been fired and no emu had been killed. In the end, Australian troops were forced to retreat because they realized they could not kill the emus cost-effectively due to the birds’ positioning tactics.
34. After the Spanish conquered what is now Mexico City, they held King Montezuma hostage. While he was captive, he still had his gold and remained a king, so he was treated somewhat decently. One Spanish guard accidentally farted in his face. Embarrassed, the guard apologized repeatedly for humiliating a noble. To show there were no hard feelings, Montezuma gave the guard a gold piece. The foolish guard then farted again, hoping to get another gold piece.
35. The KGB attempted to blackmail Indonesian President Achmed Sukarno with videotapes of him having sex with Russian women dressed as flight attendants. Before beginning the blackmail, the KGB brought Sukarno into a small private movie theater and showed him the pornographic film, in which he was the main character. The KGB agents expected him to be very frightened and agree to cooperate immediately, but the opposite happened. Sukarno warmly believed it was a gift from the Soviet government, so he asked for more copies to take back to Indonesia and show in movie theaters. Sukarno told the stunned agents that the people of Indonesia would be very proud of him if they could see him having sex with Russian girls.
Island Cargo Cults Rise
36. After World War 2, some Pacific island tribes first encountered “civilization” when US military bases were established on their islands. The military brought food and supplies, which the villagers enjoyed. After the war ended, cults appeared that constructed new runways, copied army drills, and even made straw planes in an effort to bring back the “Gods” who had given them food, medicine, and supplies.
37. In 1979, while he was in his fishing boat, U.S. President Jimmy Carter was almost attacked by a furious giant swamp rabbit that started swimming toward him. He had to drive it off. When he returned to his office, Carter’s staff refused to believe his account, arguing that rabbits could not swim or would never approach a person in a threatening way. The later news stories about the killer rabbit turned out to be extremely damaging politically.
38. One of the most amusing events of the 14th century was the Great Schism of the Catholic Church. A group of cardinals came to Rome to choose a new pope, and an angry crowd said it would kill them all unless they picked an Italian pope instead of a French one. An Italian pope was chosen. They then went back to France and elected a French pope to be the new pope. There were now two popes at once, each claiming the other was fake, splitting Europe into two religious camps, both prepared to use religion as their reason to destroy the other. The Catholic Church’s answer was to choose yet another pope, only for no one at all to support him. That left three popes, each declaring the others illegitimate and each saying the others’ followers were going to hell. In the end, the Catholic Church removed all the popes and elected a new one, this time making sure no angry crowds were present.
39. A Greek philosopher called Chrysippus died laughing after he got his donkey drunk and watched it attempt to eat figs. He was usually considered stoic, yet he died from laughter.
40. During the Battle of Drepana in 249 B.C., the Romans were trying to defeat the Carthaginian naval forces that had broken a siege. The Romans had “sacred chickens” to show when the gods were in their favor. They offered the chickens grain, and if the birds ate it, they would attack. In this case, the commander at Drepana chose to attack, so the Roman commander brought out the chickens and gave them some grain. The chickens did not eat it. They did not touch it at all. This was a bad sign. His sailors began to panic. But he was set on attacking, so he threw the chickens overboard and said, “Let them drink if they do not want to eat!” His forces did not take it well, but the Romans were disciplined, so they obeyed. The Romans were then heavily defeated by the Carthaginians in the battle.
41. The earliest medical mention of an enema appears in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus from 1550 B.C. The specialist in enemas was called the “Shepherd of the Anus.” His only duty was to keep the royal butthole healthy. There was also a “Keeper of the Royal Rectum,” who made enemas for the pharaoh. In Egyptian mythology, the god Thoth was said to have invented the enema.
42. The Dardanelles Operation of 1807 was a relatively small clash in the Napoleonic wars. The Ottomans sided with the French against Britain and Russia. The British dispatched a fleet to threaten the Turks and compel them to reopen the strait. While the British fleet moved toward Constantinople, French engineers assisted the Turkish army in repairing and strengthening the coastal defenses. Part of this effort involved putting back into service a 340 year old super cannon modeled on the one used in the celebrated Turkish capture of Constantinople in the 1400s. The cannon weighed 17 tons and launched stone cannonballs two feet across. After facing little opposition from the Turkish fleet, the British had to retreat after suffering severe damage from the shore batteries, including the enormous “Dardanelles Gun.” So yes, trebuchets are nice, but can they launch a 360 kg projectile more than 2400 meters?
43. During the 1916 Easter Rising, a struggle to end British control over Ireland, there was a one hour ceasefire every day so the park keeper of St. Stephen’s Green could feed the swans in the park. However, that ceasefire did not prevent them from demolishing his house.
44. Between the radio announcement of Germany’s surrender in World War 2 and Joseph Stalin’s speech to the nation 22 hours later, Russians celebrated so intensely that Moscow literally ran out of vodka.
45. On one occasion Alexander the Great asked the philosopher Diogenes why he was sorting through trash, and Diogenes answered, “I am searching for the bones of your father, but I cannot tell them apart from the bones of his slaves.” On another occasion, Alexander asked Diogenes whether there was anything he could do for him, and Diogenes replied, “yes, get out of my sun.” When Plato defined humans as “featherless bipeds,” Diogenes brought a featherless chicken into Plato’s classroom and said, “Behold! I’ve brought you a man!” Alexander once said that if he were not Alexander the Great, he would wish to be Diogenes. Diogenes answered, “If I were not me, I too would want to be Diogenes.”
Beethoven Flips The Score
46. Daniel Steibelt, a pianist highly regarded in his own time, once challenged his contemporary Beethoven to an improvisation duel. Steibelt genuinely thought he stood a chance. He was no youngster, and had already written music for Marie Antoinette and turned Romeo and Juliet into a successful opera. He arrived at the improv battle and performed one of his own pieces, bringing the sheet music with him. When his turn came, Beethoven flipped the sheet music upside down and brilliantly twisted the piece sideways and backward, all while overturning Steibelt’s style like a cat toying with an especially dull mouse. No one ever challenged Beethoven to a musical improv again, especially not Steibelt, who never returned to Vienna.
47. Anal Sampling Mechanism is a reflex that senses what is in the rectal vault and lets voluntary flatulence happen without accidentally passing feces. So yeah, there’s a nerve in your a*s that lets you fart without sh*tting yourself.
48. Prague experienced not one but two famous defenestrations, meaning people were thrown out of a window. The second event, in which two Catholics were hurled from a 21-meter-high window, helped ignite a 30-year war. Both men lived. Catholics say the Virgin Mary caught them, while Protestants say they simply landed in a dung pile.
49. During World War 2, a double agent named Juan Pujol García used the codename Garbo. Juan was from Spain and had grown repelled by fascism. He wrote to the UK and the US offering to spy on Germany for them, but both turned him down. So he carried on without them. He pretended to be a Nazi-supporting Spanish government official in order to become a German agent. He was told to spy on London, but instead he stayed in Lisbon and invented fake reports using English magazines and newsreels. After some time, the UK realized someone was doing an excellent job of steering Nazi resources away and recruited him as a spy. He served through the war, with Germany financing his imaginary spy network. He helped divert many German troops during the Normandy invasion. He also received medals from both the Nazis and the British for his efforts.
50. President Andrew Jackson had a parrot named Poll, and Jackson personally taught it to swear. Poll was present when Jackson died and attended his funeral. During the service, Poll cursed so loudly and for so long that the bird had to be taken out while stunned mourners looked on.
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