Historical Moments That Seem Totally Fake, But Aren't

In 1939, after aiding Germany in invading Poland, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations after invading Finland in what was known as the Winter War. The inexperienced Soviet forces were met with fierce Finnish ski troopers and were easily repelled. While the Soviets still won because of their numbers, it was a pretty humiliating victory that inspired Hitler to invade the USSR.

On April 15, 1912, newspapers were reporting the Titanic had struck an iceberg, but they were also saying that the passengers on board had been rescued and were on their way home. Some even reported the ship was still floating, but couldn't move. On the morning of April 16, the front page of every newspaper shared a more tragic and very real story about what happened.

In 1814, one of the fermentation tanks at the Horse Shoe Brewery in London broke and let beer run loose. There was so much beer that the back wall of the brewery completely collapsed, and the flood ended up killing five people.

When Winston Churchill traveled to the United States in 1941, he stayed at the White House, where he developed a close relationship with President Roosevelt. They would often gather at night to talk and drink, so when Roosevelt came up with the name for the United Nations, he went looking for his colleague's room, only to find him stepping out of the bathroom, completely naked. Both politicians would later tell this story many times, even including it in their memoirs.

Isaac Newton's work on gravity wasn't a priority for the Royal Society of London, which put all its money into publishing The History of Fish, a book about fish. They almost ran out of money, and Newton's theory was this close to not being published. Luckily, Edmond Halley, another astronomer and mathematician, was able to fund the book that changed everything.

In 1999, NASA launched a climate orbiter to check the weather on Mars, but it never got any information from it. Sadly, they lost communication with it after some errors during its travel while it was entering Mars orbit, and they never found it again. It was revealed that everything happened due to a communication error: while the NASA operatives were giving the orbiter commands using imperial units, the machine was interpreting them with the metric system.

The UK's Prime Minister Harold MacMillan resigned in 1963 after a series of scandals that should be in a movie. The biggest one involved Secretary of State for War John Profumo with a 19-year-old girl who was also associated with Yevgeny Ivanov, the Soviet naval attache and GRU officer in London at the time. Showgirl Mandy Rice-Davies was also involved in some capacity, bringing the government a total embarrassment that ended with MacMillan's resignation.

Former US President Lyndon B. Johnson loved his beaglers, Him and Her, and would often walk them himself around the White House. One day, with photographers present, he grabbed one of his dogs by the ears, and the photos caused mass complaints. Johnson had to take measures to keep his image in the middle of the controversy, and he even had his dogs featured in a spread in Life magazine.

A reprint of the King James Version of the Bible in 1631 had some errors that brought disgrace to the church. The best-known missprint issue was the removal of the word “not” in some places, resulting in Exodus 20:14 saying, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The printers were ordered to pay a fine, and all Bibles, known as Wicked, were collected and burned. Some did, of course, survive the purge.

In 1979, US President Jimmy Carter was alone in a fishing boat in Plains, Georgia, when a swimming rabbit approached him, ready to board his ship. The politician fended it off with his oar, but people did not believe his tales until the White House photographer showed the picture later. Everyone was criticizing Carter at the time, so this story was perfect to keep making fun of him for weeks. 

The 1453 Ottoman siege of Constantinople was brutal. The final result was probably going to be the same anyway because they highly outnumbered the Christians, but stories talk about a gate that was left open by accident, making the Ottoman attack a lot easier. Other tales talk about powerful cannons that took advantage of the wall's weaknesses to enter, but we like the more ridiculous version.

During the Black Plague, authorities weren't sure about anything, so, at some point, they blamed the cats. They described the animals as secretive and agents of the Devil, so they decimated the cat's population in an effort to stop the plague. Clearly, since cats were eating the rats spreading the plague, things got worse fast. By the time people realized this, both the cat and the human population were extremely low.

Also known as the Battle of Three Kings, it's described as the greatest military disaster the Portuguese ever suffered. King Sebastian I planned a crusade to help Abu Abdallah recover his throne from his uncle, Abd Al-Malik, allied with the Ottoman Empire. The defeat was brutal, ending the noble life of Portugal and annexing its territory to the Iberian Union. Thousands were killed and captured, changing Portugal's history forever.

In the war between Spain and the Netherlands, the Dutch decided to open their dikes and flood the land surrounding the cities of Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges to stop the Spanish forces. The plan worked so well that the land was devastated and the cities were abandoned. Today, they're not even Dutch territory anymore because of that.

In 1962, Decca Records held auditions for the next act that would conquer young audiences. They decided to go with Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, and informed the other band that they didn't make the cut because they were relying too much on their guitars, and “guitar groups were on the way out.” That other band had to find another way to record their first album, but they eventually did, thanks to their manager. That other band was The Beatles.