24 Incredibly Funny Historical Facts

‘Napoleon was once attacked by a horde of rabbits’
24 Incredibly Funny Historical Facts

History often gets a bad rap as a dusty, boring subject full of numbers and timelines. To be honest, I was no fan myself during the years anyone was actually trying to teach me about it. But it turns out that history is actually fascinating, seeing as it’s the record of human idiocy interspersed with moments of greatness.

Don’t blame your clinically depressed high school history teacher for failing to inspire in you a love of the past. They were busy enough trying to figure out how 23 students could share three textbooks. The sad part is you may have missed out on some legitimately good stuff. 

To right those wrongs, Redditors have rattled off their favorite hilarious historical facts for your easy consumption.

5y ago Brazil and France almost went to war because they had a disagreement about Lobsters, the event is known as The Lobster War France thought Lobsters swim therefore they were above brazillian soil and could be fished by any vessel and Brazil thought Lobsters crawled on the ocean's floor therefore are brazillian property. Brazil's foreign affairs minister had this to say about it: The attitude of France is inadmissible, and our government will not retreat. The lobster will not be caught. It ended when they agreed that actually lobsters don't crawl nor swim, they leap
htownlifer . 5y ago Many of the streets in Monterrey California are named after prostitutes. The local madam kept the town out of bankruptcy on a few conditions and named the streets after her favorite workers.
Lo-Ping 5y ago Julius Caesar had a letter dispatched via messenger while the Senate was in session. Convinced he was sending a message to his collaborators, Senator Cato the Younger demanded that the letter be read in open session to be entered into the annals of the Senate forever. Caesar allowed the letter to be read, and thus the most filthy love letter Caesar had written to his lover at the time, Cato's half- sister Servilia got entered into historical record forever. A burn so big, people still talk about it 2100 years later.
rachylynxx . 5y ago In Pompeii they molded penis shapes into the cobblestone roads to point the way to the brothel.
5y ago Ben Franklin used to leak government secrets while drunk to get laid. It got to the point he had to be watched/monitored outside of session.
Ginger_Chick . 5y ago It has been all over reddit forever, but the fact that Andrew Jackson's pet parrot was ejected from Jackson's funeral for swearing, will never not make me giggle.
jaar-gilon 5y ago Australia's 17th prime minister went swimming in the ocean one day and never came back (presumed drowned) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold Holt In honour of his memory, in typical OzStrayan fashion, we named a swimming pool after him. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold Holt M emorial Swimming_Centre
el_monstruo DE 5y ago Edited 5y ago Charondas was a celebrated lawmaker in Catania, in present day Sicily. Diodorus Siculus stated that Charondas issued a law that anyone who brought weapons into the Assembly must be put to death. Charondas ran to the Assembly one day because he was being ambushed and he wanted help. Unfortunately, he still had a sword attached still attached to himself so in order to uphold his own law, he committed suicide.
DJTHatesPuertoRicans . 5y ago In 897 the former Pope, who had been dead for seven months, was dug up and put on trial for perjury and heresy. Не was convicted.
demandred_zero 5y ago Thanks to The Dollop podcast for this, but the Willie Dee. Which was a U.S. Navy destroyer during world war 2. Amongst its exploits the ship dragged its anchor along several ships when leaving port, fired its 5 inch gun at their own base which landed in the base Commanders yard during a dinner party, accidentally launched a torpedo at the Battleship lowa which was transporting THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and was eventually sunk by a Japanese kamikaze plane that was shot down and sunk then detonated under the Willie Dee.
evdog_music 5y ago Galileo got persecuted because he personally dissed the Pope. Initially, the Catholic church didn't mind that much about Galileo's Heliocentric model, telling him to only assert it as a model instead of as fact. It was only after writing the Philosophical book, 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems', where he put Pope Urban VIII's views and arguments into the mouth of the layman character, Simplicio, that the Church took it personally.
ACrispPickle 5y ago British Navy in WW1 had battleships disguised as passenger and merchant ships with some of the sailors crossdressing as women. This was to entice German U-boats to surface as they would frequently attack unarmed and unescorted merchant ships.
5y ago Corporal Wojtek the soldier bear, served in the Polish Army in World War 2. Yes, a Syrian Brown Bear. Не saw combat, enjoyed smoking, drinking, and coffee in the morning. When solider were cold, he would sleep with them to keep them warm. Originally known as Private Wojtek, he was promoted to Corporal after his admirable service in the Battle of Monte Cassino.
LoneRanger120 a 5y ago Edited 5y ago Miracle Mike is a chicken in the 1950s (I think) that was headless. Не went on tour and he is from Colorado. Не could be fed by using a dropper and little seeds. Eventually, he died because he suffocated on some food, or something, his death is controversial.
-eDgAR- 5y ago Napoleon was once attacked by a horde of rabbits. Basically, a rabbit hunt was set up to celebrate the Treaties of Tilsit and they ended up amassing somewhere between hundreds and thousands of rabbits (accounts vary). Anyway, the day of the hunt they set the rabbits in cages surrounding the area that they would be hunting in. They released them once everyone was set, but instead of being scared the bunnies swarmed the hunting party. At first they thought it was funny, but then it got overwhelming and Napoleon and the others had to flee from the
drunkinabookstore 5y ago Caeser once got kidnaped by pirates, was outraged when he found out the ransom they were asking was too low and threw a tantrum and made them raise it.
motherfuqueer 5y ago Darwin spent 3 days on the ship trying to figure out how to use a hammock when he went to the Galapagos Islands. Не kept trying to get in legs first. Ultimately he had to pull it taut enough that it was totally flat and didn't swing. Also, he had no knowledge of how to send samples back to England and just randomly shoved dead animals into boxes. Often the scientist who received them couldn't even tell what the hell the samples were. Finally, he accidentally ate a bird that he'd specifically been on the lookout for,
taggartbridge . 5y ago San Francisco (California) once had an emperor.
Nazamroth . 5y ago There was once three popes, who all excommunicated the other two.
mrfitzmonster 5y ago | don't remember specifics, but a lord in England way, way back.(1600'S?) wanted his people to start growing potatoes. The locals scoffed at the idea, so the lord started his own potato patch and started telling people how expensive and valuable they were. Не had guards posted around his potato garden. However, he told the guards that if people snuck in at night, they were to look the other way. Through this method, the people started growing potatoes and, when the bad times came, they had a crop that could sustain them.
MadCatMephi 5y ago Once upon a time (during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866), the country of Liechtenstein sent its army, all of eighty men to guard a pass between Austria and Italy. This pretty much amounted to sitting around drinking, playing cards, and enjoying the view. However, when the time came for the army to march home, eighty one men returned to Liechtenstein, because not only did they suffer no casualties, but at some point they managed to collect an Italian defector.
AA12boy . 5y ago There are approximately 1,010,300 words in the English language, but I could never string enough words together to properly express how much I want to hit you with a chair. Alexander Hamilton to Thomas Jefferson
SoldMySoulForHairDye 5y ago When Europeans first got access to tobacco, they thought it had amazing medicinal qualities. Among many other things, they thought they could revive an unconscious or comatose person by sticking a tube or pipe up the unconscious person's ass and blowing tobacco smoke into it. This obviously didn't work, not even a little bit, but it did give us the expression 'to blow smoke up one's ass' - which means a placating action that doesn't actually help in any way.
TruthTeller_Really . 5y ago Notorious Pirate/Pirate hunter Benjamin Hornigold Once attacked a ship just to steal all of the crew member's hats. His men had gotten drunk and lost their hats during a party the night before and decided to board a ship to get replacements.

Tags:

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

VIRAL ON CRACKED

A WEEKLY
NEWSLETTER OF
JOKES + TRIVIA

Forgot Password?