Saturday, December 5, 2020

Moments In History That Are Too Dumb To Seem Real


People have done stupid things for a long time and it doesn't seem like we're gonna stop anytime soon. History lets us see some of humanity's highlights when it comes to making irreparable mistakes, doing weird garbage, and getting killed in idiotic ways. Here are some history memes to feel smart about as well as some of the great trollings of history.

1.

Text - bobakittens 25.2k points · 12 hours ago · edited 1 hour ago 3 2 5 e3 3 2 E During 1774 Frederick the Great of Prussia had a free potato policy to help the people through the famine. A lot of people initially rejected the potatoes and so he had guards feign patrol of the potato fields so they looked more valuable and people would steal them in the night. Even though they were totally free.

2.

Text - KingAlfredOfEngland 13.7k points · 12 hours ago · edited 8 hours ago 2 Everything about Tycho Brahe is amazing. His nose was cut off in a duel, and replaced by a prosthetic made out of gold. He died when his bladder exploded because he drank too much alcohol. He had a friend, Jeppe, who he believed was a psychic dwarf. He was one of the wealthiest men in Denmark and owned a private island, which housed his observatory, before he went into exile after a spat with the 11-year-old king. Edit

3.

Text - Moses_The_Wise 23.7k points · 13 hours ago · edited 1 hour ago 2 2 3 3 Alright I don't remember the specifics. But there was a king (I believe a sumerian king) who was told by an oracle that "Disaster would befall the king." So he had a gardener crowned as king for a day, and that night the gardener would be executed, thus fulfilling the prophecy and saving the real king. Soon after the gardener's coronation, the real king choked on soup and died. The gardener ruled for 24 years Edit: htt

4.

Text - Fact-Crab 6.5k points · 12 hours ago 2 e S Jack Daniels (yeah, that Jack Daniels) died from an infected stubbed toe caused by him kicking a safe containing money to which he had forgotten the combination.

5.

Text - Nfield87 23.1k points · 12 hours ago 3 9 3 3 During the Spanish American War. The Spanish governor of Guam wasn't told about the war. When a US warship showed up he was happy to see them, cause he thought they where just visiting. Boy was he wrong.

6.

Text - Farkenoathm8-E 22.6k points · 11 hours ago & 16 More How the Berlin Wall fell. In order to calm mounting protests GDR officials decided on loosening travel restrictions between East and West, not open the border completely. Notes of the new rules had been handed to a spokesman who hadn't had time to read them before the press conference. "Private travel outside the country can now be applied for without prerequisites," he said. Surprised journalists clamoured for more details. Shuffling t

7.

Text - Ramtalok 30.1k points · 14 hours ago 2 3 & 4 More Not one but two kings of France died by smashing their heads on the top part of a door (lintel ?). Charles VIII in 1498 (the shock probably caused something else but still). Louis III on the other hand was pursuing a fair lady (who was actually trying to escape him) on his horse on the 5th of August 882, when she passed a door. The horse went through, not the king, who broke his skull and died instantly.

8.

Text - Toby_O_Notoby 3.2k points · 13 hours ago a When more people began started switching to skim milk dairy farmers had tons of milk fat left over so they stored it all in some caves in Missouri. This lead the USDA to open a department on Dairy Management to figure out what to do with it. Want to know why almost every fast food item comes with so much cheese? That's why.

9.

Text - DOrko 20.4k points · 14 hours ago More people have died from drowning in molasses than being attacked by coyotes.

10.

Text - JohnSmith2217 17.7k points · 9 hours ago 5 2 3 e7 Benjamin Hornigold was a pirate in the late 16 and early 1700s who once robbed a merchant vessel purely for the crews hats because he and his crew got so drunk the night before that they all threw their own hats overboard for no good reason.

11.

Text - 25 3 3 bakedmaga2020 28.9k points · 13 hours ago A man from New York missed his friends who were fighting in Vietnam. So he traveled thousands of miles to track them down in a combat zone to personally give them beer and letters from home. He even wrote a book about it called The Greatest Beer Run Ever

12.

Text - fbkjj 24.4k points · 14 hours ago It is said that Greek tragedian Aeschylus died because an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head, mistaken for a rock, in order to break the shell of the tortoise.

13.

Text - RealisticDelusions77 16.5k points · 15 hours ago · edited 13 hours ago 3 As WW2 revved up, the US realized that fast and cheap was the way to go with manufacturing ships (ex Liberty Ships). But there was a line of escort carriers made with so little armor that some Japanese armor-piercing shells went through the hull and out the other side without exploding, a nice surprise. https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2019/01 /14/survival-off-samar/

14.

Text - Alistair_TheAlvarian 15.2k points · 13 hours ago There was a real plan to spike hitlers food with estrogen to try to turn him into a woman and make him give up on war. Hitler estrogen plan

15.

Text - theycallmemomo 14.8k points · 15 hours ago Honduras and El Salvador had a 3-day war over a football game.

16.

Text - Arcaeca 14.6k points · 11 hours ago 2 3 During WWI, Germany converted and armed a passenger cruise liner, the SMS Cap Trafalgar, into a cruiser, and sent to the Atlantic Ocean to disrupt British shipping. Off the coast of Brazil though, when they received word that a British ship was coming to flush out German ships disrupting British shipping, the SMS Cap Trafalgar decided to disguise itself as another ocean liner-turned-cruiser, the HMS Carmania, so that they wouldn't be shot at. The Br

17.

Text - spyraxian 14.1k points · 9 hours ago edited 3 hours ago e 32 A Skylab satellite's guidance system was failing and ended up crash landing in Australia. Instead of giving the satellite back, Skylab was charged with a $500 littering fine. After the fine was paid, the company wanted to put the satellite in a museum but was refused on the basis that since the satellite fell from space, its legally Australia's now. So now, Skylab pays a monthly rent to Australia to display its own satellite in

18.

Text - FenrirIII 13.2k points · 11 hours ago 2 e 3 2 In 1184, a number of nobles from across the Holy Roman Empire were meeting in a room at the Church of St. Peter, when their combined weight caused the floor to collapse into the latrine beneath the cellar and led to dozens of nobles drowning in liquid excrement. It is referred to as the Erfurt latrine disaster

19.

Text - Potato_Bees 11.8k points · 14 hours ago King George II Was so constipated while he was taking a crap his heart actually physically burst.

20.

Text - Mr-Pringlz-and-Carl 11.6k points · 12 hours ago A quote from Winston Churchill when he was visiting the White house and the president walked in on him buck naked: "The prime minister of the UK has nothing to hide from the president of the US."

21.

Text - Ms_Superhero1939 10.5k points · 12 hours ago e Corn flakes were originally marketed as an anti masturbation cereal and the man who made them, John Harvey Kellogg, adopted all 8 of his kids and didn't even sleep in the same room as his wife

22.

Text - SayNoToStim 8.4k points · 10 hours ago There is at least one person, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both Atomic bombs. I don't know if this is incredibly good luck or incredibly bad luck. According to some sources, he was in the middle of describing the Hiroshima bombing when the Nagasaki bomb went off only a few KM away.

23.

Text - chinesesneeze 7.8k points · 12 hours ago S Turkmen Bashi, the former dictator of Turkmenistan, made owning a dog illegal due to him thinking they smelled bad. wfaulk 2.2k points · 7 hours ago S He also renamed the month of April after his mother. And renamed bread after his mother.

24.

Text - DankNastyAssMaster 6.9k points · 11 hours ago · edited 11 hours ago 32 Fidel Castro loved milk so much that when his cow who holds the world record for most milk produced in a day died, he had her taxidermied, had a marble statue of her built and a full eulogy and obituary written for her in his state newspaper, and Cuban scientists have repeatedly tried (and failed) to clone her. Her name was Ubre Blanca, which means White Udder.

25.

Text - FredrickTheWriter69 6.5k points · 12 hours ago The reason there isn't a lot of mummies around anymore, is because we ate them.

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Lazy Boss Demands Password Change, Gets Incomprehensible Password


Communication is key, and this manager who couldn't pay enough attention to make his own password got exactly what he asked for. As it turns out, this kind of thing isn't so rare. For another time someone at work wanted something but wasn't clear enough, here's a boss who demanded a demolished office but got more than that.

1.

Text - r/MaliciousCompliance · Posted by u/foobar754 17 hours ago Just change your password and write it down for you? Sure thing. oc s Back when I was working at a small company, the company didn't really have a ton of support staff so I'd take a break from the various programming tasks I was doing and would help out. The "manager" of the support team was completely unqualified and basically got the job because he was also the head of sales and it was a customer facing team.

2.

Text - He was also a lazy luddite who refused to learn how things worked and generally made our lives more difficult. One day I was covering on the support desk because they were short staffed and got a call from him that he needed his password changed. I was confused at first and started to walk him through the steps to change it himself. And he shouted angrily, "No goddammit, just change it, write it down on a Post-It and give it to me." And hung up.

3.

Text - So I sat there for a minute and remembered I don't report to him at all. So I changed his password for him. I made it 18 characters long and it was a combination of I, I, 1, ! and | . He was not happy. Especially after he mistyped enough times to lock his computer and he couldn't log in the rest of day. Because the support guy who had the access to do a hard password reset was out for the day.

4.

Text - themcp Score hidden · 15 hours ago Only 18? My boss once got pissy about something and demanded control access to the very sensitive system we had built for the company. We had given him an account which would allow him to see all summaries, but he wanted control of everything, which would allow him to destroy the company in a heartbeat if he did something stupid, and I knew he wasn't technically qualified to do something intelligent. He absolutely demanded it, and I'd be fired if I didn'

5.

Text - The password was all I, I, 1,|, 0, and O. 300 characters of it. I never heard a peep about it again. (Yeah, that was actually the account I used when I really needed it. No I didn't remember it. I had it stored on a USB stick in my pocket and I'd cut and paste it into the program when I needed it.)

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The World's Pettiest Revenges


Oh boy, we've got a fresh collection of people taking ridiculous petty revenges on one another. Some folks just refuse to let other people's unconscious behavior roll off their back, and instead they proceed to hatch masterful, crazy petty revenges. These people certainly held nothing back. 

Check out another juicy petty revenge tale with this sister who always stole her sibling's food, so the sibling took revenge at the graduation.

1.

Text - r/pettyrevenge + Join u/Amebl • 6d A1 &1 & 6 21 e3 39 8 4 1 Sent my primary school teacher a copy of my university diploma As the Austrian school system may be unfamiliar to most a short explanation. After primary school children (age 10) will enter either Hauptschule or Gymnasium ( a school not for performing sports) depending among other things on grades earned during the last year of primary school. This system is sometimes compared with the schools in Great Britain of the 1940-1960 wi

2.

Text - Ms Baker ( not her name) my teacher I this last year of primary school hated to have me in her class, first I could not sing (she lead the school choir) and second I was a handicapped kid that they had failed to get rid off to special education school. The first thing she did was assigning me seating at the back of the room, all other kids were rotated regularly in seating, I stayed there. This lead to some problems due to misheard instructions or words during dictation. At the end of the

3.

Text - r/pettyrevenge + Join u/McNuggeteer • 2d 1 1 4 3 2 She Challenged Me So I work in a small office with a small parking lot. This morning I parked in the front spot. During my break I decide to go to Taco Bell cause I know l'll be missing lunch cause I gotta go shopping. My co-worker who was sitting in her car smoking at the time I left saw me leave and when I came back she was in my previous spot. I don't say anything about this, but inside my mind I'm like 'Alright, I see how it is. Let's

4.

Text - r/pettyrevenge u/LuLuLoopy • 7d + Join 2 9 1 1 She ruined a surprise party on purpose This happened when I was a kid, I was just reminded it of, I was about 11 and my grandmother was about to turn 75. Our family is pretty scattered around but we made a trip every year to see her in the summer while she was alive and have a family reunion.

5.

Text - Now this particular year my mom who is granny's daughter, suggested we all return the month after the family reunion for her birthday and a family dinner. My moms brother and her niece (not that brothers daughter but daughter to her dead brother) immediately jumped all over the plans, invited half the town and turned it into a massive surprise party, excluding my mom from the plans. My mom said nothing in the plans continued, we went for the usual, scheduled trip and the family reunion. W

6.

Text - We stayed in town about a week to spend time with her and when we all were leaving one of my aunts remarked that we really surprised Granny, it was then my mom started cackling like the wicked witch of the west. It turns out that when we were there previously, my grandmother was sad that we were leaving, She told my mom that she didn't want everyone to leave until my mom took the opportunity to tell her "don't be sad we're coming back in a few weeks for your birthday. Don't tell anybody.

7.

Text - r/pettyrevenge + Join u/Papa_PizzaBoi • 3d Don't touch my food A short petty story... I usually invite my siblings to eat out with me like twice a month, and usually I'm the one paying. So I take my brothers my sis and her boyfriend for a little lunch to a buffet, nothing major. Well this buffet let's people order custom items (think a hibachi) so I order. We all sit and have a fun chat then the food is ready I go pick it up then I move away to wash my hands before eating, I'm starving by

8.

Text - r/pettyrevenge + Join u/wonderlandsfinestawp • 2d Hog all the parking at the top of the hill? Enjoy waiting to get out of the driveway! This happened years ago, back when I was still working residential healthcare. One of the houses that I worked at had a really steep driveway that lead from the road up to the front door/garage. There was room to park at the top of the driveway, in front of the entrance, and there was more than enough room for two cars to park side by side in this area. S

9.

Text - Cue a coworker whose name I couldn't remember if I tried. In addition to the healthcare work, she was also a correctional officer and had this "I'm boss/l'm better than you" air about her. Which explained why she liked to park her truck right in the *middle* of the parking area at the top of the hill, taking up both spots. I mentioned it to her two or three times, that if she parked a bit further over to the right or left, we would both be able to park there and I wouldn't have to go thro

10.

Text - The next night I was relieving this particular co-worker at this particular house, sure enough, she had her truck hogging up the entire upper parking area. So I pulled my car up right behind hers, blocking her from pulling out. I clocked in, checked in with her about any important information about the clients, then excused myself to the bathroom while she got ready to leave. Less than thirty seconds after going into the bathroom, she's knocking at the door to inform me that my car is blo

11.

Text - Naturally, I act shocked. "Oh no! You can't get around it? Shoot, I thought for sure I left enough room for you to get around it! Alright, so sorry about that, just give me a minute and l'll be right out." I then proceeded to kick back and play on my phone for the next ten minutes, leaving her standing outside the bathroom door with an attitude so strong I can practically feel it pulsing through the door. Once I decided she waited long enough, I made a show of flushing the toilet and wash

12.

Text - r/pettyrevenge u/mcg42ray • 20h + Join 1 Run a red light in front of me? Talk to the cop who's just behind me. I don't like red light runners. It's really dangerous. But I got my revenge. Once. This was (mumble) years ago. I was doing my usual commute and had just missed a light so I was first at the intersection and others were lining up behind me. It's a sunny day in California so l'm just looking around and I spot a CHP (California Highway Patrol) car in the next lane over and one car

13.

Text - As the light's about to turn green I see across the intersection a car approaching fast in the left turn lane to turn in front of me, and it's clear that they're not going to succeed at beating the light. It's not even going to be close. My light turns green, I start to move forward as if I didn't see them, then slam the brakes and hit the horn, and they go zooming past in front me. It was all for show and I didn't even get into the intersection, but sure enough, Mr. CHP noticed and makes

14.

Text - r/pettyrevenge u/mundane_days • 2d + Join 1 2 2 e 2 3 2 Don't live here and keep parking in my assigned spot? I didnt want to give the ending away in title. Little background. I live in an apartment complex that has been taken over by new management. Hes a great landlord, but has been slow to truly implement some rules in the leasing contract. One of the rules is this: only one parking space per owner. Meaning, visitors must park on the public street in front of the building.

15.

Text - Now, when I first moved in, last year, they didn't have assigned spots, so you would just kinda park wherever. This past summer, landlord and maintenance spent an entire day re-painting lines and assigning each spot a number to correspond with apartment numbers. It has been brought up in memos and meetings that he will start to implement the towing of non-authorized vehicles and has even hired someone to keep track of this (apparently) This hadn't been an issue until I went back to work.

16.

Text - This last time though? Pissed me off. I was getting my kids in the car to take them to school. There's this car that is creeping the parking lot, and I know saw me parked in my spot. They left. I happened to get out of the parking lot just in time to see them turn back into the lot. I followed them back in and my suspicions were confirmed. He parked in my spot. I pull up, with my window down, and yell at him that I live here and that is my assigned parking. They moved.

17.

Text - Again, I had to work that night. I leave, and come back to find a DIFFERENT vehicle parked in my spot. This would make 5 different vehicles in the span of two weeks. (There are also signs posted in front of each spot that only one spot per owner and violators will be towed) I parked directly behind them. I ended up blocking the previous car that I yelled at and the new car (I was horizontal compared to their vertical) and made sure I left room for other vehicles to get through the lot. Yo

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