6 Tiny Things In History That Made Our Ancestors Act Crazy

At some point in the early 20th century, it was decided that anyone wearing a straw hat by the end of summer must be a complete chump. As soon as September 15 rolled around, it was felt hat season, motherfucker. Young men would slap straw hats right off of people's heads when they saw them -- you know, as a public service. Unfortunately, not everyone appreciated this gesture. In September 1922, some straw-hat-wearing dock workers fought back against a bunch of hat-slapping kids, and things escalated from there.

Soon, packs of hat haters were ambushing pedestrians and even jumping on motorists, while "a mob of 1,000" burned piles of stolen straw hats in large bonfires. They were armed with clubs with nails on them. It was like a Mad Max movie by way of Charlie Chaplin.

The violence died down after a few days, but the message was loud and clear: Do not wear a goddamn straw hat after September 15. The problem sort of solved itself once the Great Depression came around, since no one could afford hats anymore.

The only way to ensure women could eat food without falling into selling their bodies for deli meat was the creation of "women-only" restaurants, though men could also come inside if they were on a date or wearing a convincing wig. These special lady restaurants were known as ice cream saloons, and focused on light lunches (because women are vain and obsessed with their weight) and elaborate desserts (because women have no self-control and gorge themselves on tasty junk).

By the 1920s, restaurants stopped pretending they were protecting anybody's morals and finally admitted that they didn't want women there, "easy" or otherwise. As such, women spent the first half of the 20th century launching lawsuits and staging demonstrations until they were finally allowed to eat wherever the hell they wanted. In some cases, that took until the fucking 1970s. Man walked on the Moon before women were allowed in certain restaurants.

See, tipping was originally "invented" by rich Europeans trying to show off by handing out wads of cash to servants. Visiting rich Americans loved the idea and brought it home, where it was swiftly condemned as a return to feudalism and degrading to American ideals of democracy. Oh, and even though it was well-off Americans who brought it over, it was blamed on immigrants, because that's how we roll.

Fearing that tipping would destroy America, several states actually passed anti-tipping laws in the early 20th century ... but everyone ignored them, including the legislators themselves. By the 1920s, America had moved on to the next moral panic (something about alcohol, you probably aren't familiar), and the anti-tipping laws were repealed. Although we've since passed other laws to make sure tipped employees make as little money as possible. What could be more American than that?

Because of this, Victorian letter writers intentionally wrote shorter correspondence. Many letters ended with the phrase "return of post," which was old-timey speak for "respond quickly, asshole." People were so impatient that mail services got major complaints if letters weren't received within a couple of hours. Of course, not all mail was welcome. As we've covered, Victorian England also had telegram spam, which is proof that we're not getting stupider; we're simply more effective at being stupid.

Related: The 5 Worst Legal Defenses Actually Attempted In Court

Thanksgiving partiers would go around asking for money, blowing horns, and chucking confetti at pedestrians. But by the 1920s, the general public grew tired of handing out nickels to hooligans dressed like parrots, so the practice gradually disappeared ... and was almost immediately replaced by Halloween, to the relief of the latex mask industry.

Related: 7 Ridiculous Cases Where Animals Were Put On Trial

... and Coke:

That's right. Pepsi was for black people, and Coke was for ... pasty gremlins, apparently. This wasn't some innocent coincidence or anything. Coke and Pepsi knew exactly what they were doing. See, Coca-Cola was originally served with a splash of cocaine, hence the name. Everybody was cool with this, until they realized that *gasp* black people could buy this drink too. Middle-class white people worried that blacks would take a sip of Coke, become cocaine addicts, and then go around raping white women. The makers of Coke, desperate to avoid controversy, removed the cocaine from the beverage and intentionally stopped advertising their product anywhere where it could be easily seen by black people (that whole "segregation" thing came in pretty handy there).

That's when Pepsi stepped in. Seeing Coke's racism as opening up an "untapped market" in society, Pepsi hired an entire "negro markets" department dedicated to ensuring black people drank their sweet, sweet nectar. They went all in, hiring black salesmen, using black celebrities in advertising, and even circulating the racist shit that Coke's CEO had said.

Eventually, the two companies decided to shed their labels as "white" and "black" sodas, and transition to something more neutral. Now we know both are horrific for everybody's bodies.

Jordan Breeding also writes for a whole mess of other people, the Twitter, and a weird amount of gas station bathrooms.

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For more, check out How Gun Control Made Australia Safer Than America:

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