History’s rebellions were not always fought in the ways you might expect. From bizarre protests and unlikely leaders to revolts sparked by the smallest of incidents, these remarkable true stories prove that reality can be far stranger than fiction.
Republican Baptisms at Sea
1. During the Reign of terror in the French Revolution, people suspected of supporting the royalists were gathered in groups of 300 to 400. They were bound hand and foot and put aboard ships that were then sunk offshore. This was called Republican Baptisms. An estimated 9000 people, mostly clergy, died this way.
2. A rebellion by textile workers in 14th century Florence resulted in the son of a washerwoman becoming president after he walked barefoot into the palace and toppled the oligarchic government. For 4 years, the republic was governed almost entirely by middle-class artisans and shopkeepers.
3. The Taiping Rebellion, which caused the deaths of more than 20 to 30 million people, was launched in China by a man who believed he was Jesus Christ’s brother.
4. During the Easter Uprising in 1916, British Soldiers and Irish Volunteers observed a cease-fire so the groundskeepers could feed the ducks on St. Stephen’s Green.
5. The first student protest in the United States took place at Harvard in 1766, when a student shouted, “Behold, our butter stinketh!— give us, therefore, butter that stinketh not.” This began The Great Butter Rebellion.
6. On August 25, 1921, the biggest civil uprising in the United States since the Civil War took place, when 10,000 coal miners fought 3,000 police officers and “strikebreakers”. The coal miners were trying to unionize West Virginia’s coal mines. U.S. troops were later sent in under presidential orders.
7. In 131 A.D., the Jews rose up against Rome for the second time in 50 years. Emperor Hadrian suppressed the Bar Kokhba revolt. He killed 580,000 Jews and sold the survivors into slavery, beginning a diaspora that would not be reversed for about 1800 years.
8. During the French Revolution, radicals attempted to create two rival religions to replace Christianity: the atheist Cult of Reason and the deist Cult of the Supreme Being.
9. During the 2014 Thai coup d’etat, sandwiches were used as a symbol against the coup, and a group of students was charged with “possessing sandwiches with ill intent.”
10. During the American Revolution, a young Andrew Jackson was told by a British officer to clean his boots. When he declined, the officer struck at him with his sword, leaving cuts on his hand and cheek. This made him resentful of everything British until his conversion in 1842.
Deadly Delay Sparks Revolt
11. In Qin China, two generals were late to a battle during the Dazexiang uprising. Because the penalty for being late to a government post was death, they chose to lead their soldiers into rebellion to fight for their freedom, since rebellion was also punishable by death.
12. The only coup in US history took place in North Carolina in 1898. A white supremacist mob carrying rifles and pistols marched on Wilmington’s City Hall and toppled the local government, forcing both black and white officials to step down. The mob leader was later chosen as mayor.
13. In the Hungarian Uprising, Soviet forces raided Radio Bucharest in early October 1956, leaving the station with just one western recording to play: “My Boy Lollipop” by Barbie Gaye. The station repeated the song continuously for more than a month, turning it into the song of the revolution.
14. During the American Revolution, many untrained American soldiers used bayonets to cook meat over fires instead of using them in close combat. After a Prussian general taught the American Army bayonet fighting, it won an entire battle without firing a shot.
15. In the Industrial Revolution, some children were so poor that their schools had to loan them shoes, and mark them with a warning not to pawn them for money to buy food.
16. During the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, President George Washington became the only sitting president ever to command troops in the field.
17. In 1839, a slave revolt erupted aboard the slave ship La Amistad and caused two deaths. The captives were taken and put on trial. The ruling said they had acted as free men and were allowed to use whatever force was needed to secure freedom. They were all sent back to Africa.
18. The Indian rebellion of 1857 began because the East India Trading Company required its soldiers to bite off the seal on their ammunition cartridges, which were sealed with pork and beef animal fats, contrary to Muslim and Hindu beliefs.
19. During the Nian Rebellion, more than 100,000 people died when young men, angry over the severe shortage of women to marry, rebelled against the Qing empire.
20. The German Coast Uprising of 1811 was the largest slave revolt in U.S. history. It led to the deaths of 2 white men. Altogether, 95 black people were hanged and mutilated, with their heads used to decorate New Orleans.
Pharaoh’s Messenger Gets Farted
21. In 570 B.C., amid a revolt against Pharaoh Apries, one of his generals, Amasis, sided with the rebels. Apries then sent a messenger to persuade Amasis to come back. After hearing the message, Amasis lifted his leg, farted, and told the messenger to deliver that to the Pharaoh.
22. In the 1916 Umatilla Petticoat Rebellion, a covert write-in effort by newly enfranchised women voters put female candidates into every open seat in an Oregon town government, and the mayor was voted out of office by his wife.
23. In the Batavia mutiny of 1628, 340 wreck survivors were left on an island off Australia’s coast. A pharmacist who was leading them had dozens killed, and by the time rescuers arrived there had been fighting over a makeshift fort built by the survivors, with more than 100 people dead.
24. During the 1848 uprising in Vienna, Emperor Ferdinand I, after noticing the protesters from his palace, asked Chancellor Metternich what they were doing, and Metternich answered, “They are making a revolution,” prompting the Emperor to ask, “But are they allowed to do that?”
25. During an English peasant revolt, a rebel leader known as Captain Pouch said he would shield the rebels with what was in his pouch. When the revolt collapsed and he was taken prisoner, the only thing found in his pouch was a piece of green cheese.
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