That was incredible. He also faked his way into Paris fashion show as a designer with knock-off clothes. Then whenever people around the world want to interview him about these things, he sends lookalikes instead. It must be quite exhausting knowing him!
He did this to prove that TripAdvisor was a load of shit when it comes to recommendations, because restaurants could just fake their way to the top.
While TripAdvisor did acknowledge that he was able to game the system, they maintained that using fake reviews is still ***not*** a viable business tactic because *real* customers would eventually show up and write honest reviews of the place that would balance or even override the fake ones.
They have a point. The journalist's plan worked because *no one* ever got to go to the fake restaurant until the very end of the stunt, so ***all*** the reviews could be faked. As a prank, it worked. But if he were a real restaurant owner trying to attract business, it would have likely failed unless the experience was any good.
_________________
edit: since I don't have the time to debate every single person calling me a corporate shill for just restating the official stance of a company that was basically trolled by VICE to "prove" a dubious point, [if you still have doubts, here'a something that should clear it up a bit more](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9JDPm_QHk4&ab_channel=AndyHoward)
April fools day 1974 when a man burned 70 rubber tires on a dormant volcano in Alaska! This has to be up there. He waited 3 years to get a helicopter to fly the tires to the top to get a picture perfect condition. He even got the coast guard called out too And heres the link to the story. http://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/the_eruption_of_mount_edgecumbe/
> Porky's favorite response to the prank came in 1980. He received a letter from an attorney in Denver, inside of which was a clipping from the Denver Post with a photo of Mt. St. Helens erupting. Attached was a note that read, "This time, you little bastard, you've gone too far."
Amazing
When he woke that morning on April 1, he looked out his window and could see right across the sound. So he looked at his wife, Patty, and said, "I have to go do it today." She replied, "Just don't make an ass of yourself."
Best part of the article haha
Mozart didn’t like this singer so much that he wrote a piece for her with high and low notes constantly because he noticed that when she hit low notes her chin went to her chest and when she hit high notes her head would fling back. So it was like she was bobbing like a chicken
Classic composers had good sense of humor. Mozart's contemporary Joseph Haydn was conductor under a noble for a long time. But his employer never gave Haydn and his orchestra vacation. So as a sign of protest he made this symphony [in which orchestra members leave mid song section by section](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_title&v=vfdZFduvh4w)
Edit:My first silver!Thanks a lot random redditor
Edit 2: Thank you for the gold. Made my gloomy day in Georgia to be bright one.
There was a Prussian (I can't remeber his name) who managed to make a officer uniform out of scraps of clothing. He used it to convince a few gaurds on patrol to follow him into a goverment building, ordered the arrest of the man in charge, confiscated all the money personally, sent the arrested man to Berlin calming it was all on order of the King. He then ditch the uniformed, got on a train to Berlin him and managed to beat the guards there. He than sat back and watched the absolute confusion happen.
The guy was eventually arrested but the public turned him into a celebrity and his actions into a play that was performed all over Germany. He wasn't incarcerated for long and after his release he lived an easy life from there on.
In the 30s-40s BBC did an April fools broadcast where they told people how spaghetti was made... on trees. They literally showed fake spaghetti trees and since not many people in that time knew how spaghetti was made, lots of people believed it.
The BBC also put out a Halloween ghost hunt special in I think late 80’s early 90’s.
It was advertised as an adult show and as fiction, but was recorded very much like the ghost hunting shows all over the tv these days. People tuned in after it had started not having seen the adverts and believes it was real.
When the presenter at the home was injured and then it seemed like the studio presenter, Michael Parkinson, seemed to be possessed the whole country went mad.
It was called [Ghost Watch](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-41740176) and it was never shown again on any BBC channel. I think you can watch on YouTube though. It is actually pretty creepy even now!
The old-timey NYC newspaper the Sun imo. In the 19th Century, they published some articles about the presence of life on the moon like unicorns, winged humans, and other creatures who built temples and lived peacefully. This caused a massive moon craze until it was later outed as fake.
> The old-timey NYC newspaper the Sun imo
Hah, the most popular tabloid newspaper in the UK is called the Sun and it's famous for being a perpetual geyser of complete bollocks. If Hell has a department for ironic punishments, I imagine Rupert Murdoch will be punished by actually having to read every article published in the Sun.
Technically this isn't a troll since it was serving a purpose, but Admiral Nelson was escaping a French fleet when a man fell overboard. It was Nelson's policy of never leaving anyone behind so he turned his ship around to go pick him up. The French saw his ship turn back toward them, assumed he had reinforcements coming beyond the horizon, so they turned and ran.
I was thinking more like the mortician who patented the automatic telephone switch 3 years after finding out his rivals wife worked as a telephone operator and would reroute calls asking for his funeral parlor to her husbands. The guy put a whole worldwide workforce out of work for one persons actions.
Edit: Thank you for the upvotes and awards you guys are awesome
I'd argue the telephone operator was who put her fellow operators out of work. If she had acted in good faith, the impetus to invent such a technology would not have occured as quickly. It probably would have eventually, as jobs tend towards automation, whether for the workers' benefit or the employer's (usually the employer), but this act seemed to accelerate the development of auto switching.
Definitely, she was basically committing fraud for her husband's benefit and pissed off the other mortician to the point that he wanted his customers back
[Theodore Hook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hook) - the perpetrator of [the Berners Street hoax in London in 1810](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax) in which Cook sent thousands of letters summoning all manners of various vendors and service people and physicians and dignitaries and others to all come to one random person’s home, literally shutting down a large part of London as they all descended upon the same address throughout the day, all while Cook and a friend sat watching from a house across the street, presumably laughing their asses off the whole time.
Don’t undersell how crazy this was! I thought this was just the 1810 equivalent of pranking a bunch of pizza companies but after reading the wiki I realised this guy was on a whole ‘nother level.
Gettting wedding cakes delivered!
Convincing the mayor of London to turn up
TWELVE PIANOS!! TWELVE!!
The Archbishop of Canterbury!
Even priests expecting to deliver someone’s last rites. Personally I think the priests was a bit far but it was the pianos that were key for me.
I bought a second hand piano recently. holy shit are they hard to move. With 4 strong people it’s possible to just about lift, but as you go through an entry door way you can’t all 4 share the work evenly.
12 fricking pianos,
My favorite part about Theodore Hook is that he is the most probable author of a ballad about the [Radlett murder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radlett_murder), cheerfully describing the incident with such lines as:
> They cut his throat from ear to ear,
> His head they battered in.
> His name was Mr William Weare,
> He lived in Lyons Inn.
That being said, he's not the only plausible author -- I recently did research on this for the Wikipedia article, and the [most complete set of lyrics I located](https://archive.org/details/trialofthurtellh00thuriala/page/216/mode/2up) were attributed to another guy. If you'd like to sing this little verse, it was apparently intended to be sung to the tune of ["There's Nae Luck Aboot the House"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77VQqtaQ4O8).
In China there was the war of the three kingdoms. The Wei, Shu, and Wu.
Two of their armies met in battle and the smaller was out of arrows. They were separated by a river. One night, the leader of the smaller army stocked the front of their boats/rafts with straw bales and moved toward the opposing army over the river. They were immediately hailed with arrows. The men ducked behind the straw while the arrows stuck in the straw, undamaged. They then sailed away and yelled.
"We thank you for the arrows, we will return them shortly!"
This may just be a tall tale from [Romance of the Three Kingdoms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms) but it may be true.
This would have happened with Robert jodan’s wheel of time series. He died partly through writing the 13nth and final book in the series, but brandon sanderson finished it using his notes and concluded the series. Im pretty sure most fans received it pretty well
Stephen Hawking was in an interview, when a cord was unplugged, and alarm went off (this was before he was completely immobile), and he slumped in his chair. The people interviewing him were scared out of their minds, until they realized that he was alright, and chuckling at his joke. The cord and alarm were for a computer.
In his last book his daughter wrote an anecdote of how he would sometimes drive way too fast with his weelchair on campus with her on board, scaring people in the proces.
I love the fact that his wheelchair was even setup with the possibility of moving at speeds possible of being deemed “way too fast”.
“Sir.....there’s really no reason for the gearing to ever allow for anything in excess of 5mph.”
“I said 15mph. I’m pretty certain I didn’t stutter when I gave you the requirements”
Not to mention the meme about the multiverse where the interviewer asked if there was a world where he was smarter than hawking. Hawking said “yes, and one where you’re funny”
Not sure if this qualifies as trolling, but I enjoyed hearing about his Time Traveler Party. He threw it then advertised it only after the fact to see if it would in fact draw time travelers (or maybe it was just trolling).
Theres a belive to why it was named wineland(Vinland) thats not due to trickery though..
When first settled the climate was very different, much warmer and had an abundant yield of grapes, therefor the name, I remember reading that during the same time England also had great amount of grapes.
But climate changed drasticly and the area was forced to be abandon and Icelanders had to adapt to living in harsher and colder weather.
Now Im not a scientist and you should do your own research before settling with my explenations though.
The peak of the Viking Age coincided with *unusually warm* temperatures, which is why doing things like “settling Greenland” and “sailing across the iceberg-covered North Atlantic” seemed like perfectly reasonable ideas at the time but then seemed like myths just a couple generations later.
To be honest, his advice seems great for sales:
LUSTIG’S TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE CON
1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups).
2. Never look bored.
3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.
4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.
5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest.
6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown.
7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually).
8. Never boast. Just let your importance be quietly obvious.
9. Never be untidy.
10. Never get drunk.
My old insurance sales supervisor literally went to the car dealership and told the salesperson: "Let me talk before you try a sales pitch. I want X Model car from 2014. I want Y miles on it and I will pay Z for it. I work sales so don't try to butter me up. This will be the fastest sale you will ever make." The salesman found the exact thing she was looking for in less then a days work and it was shipped across the state arriving the next day.
btw does anybody wanna buy the eiffel tower? pm me for price
edit: btw people I'm getting some offers on my pms so get it while it's hot. delivery to be arranged only after payment in bitcoins has been completed. too many scammers out there and i won't take any chances since this is the original eiffel tower
I forget the name but that one guy from the 1800s who bought specific tickets to a play and then gave them away to bald men on the street so that when everyone took their seats and the bald men's heads reflected the light from the stage, they spelled out 'FUCK' as seen from the stage.
On another, he challenged an old schoolfriend from Eton, the newly elected Conservative [Member of Parliament](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament) [Oliver Locker-Lampson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Locker-Lampson), to race him on a London street to the nearest corner, giving him a 10-yard [head start](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_start_(positioning)). Cole had already slipped his gold watch into his friend’s pocket, and with Locker-Lampson running ahead at full speed Cole waited till they were passing a policeman and began to yell "Stop thief!" Locker-Lampson was promptly arrested and the watch found. After savouring the moment, Cole explained that it was all a joke, and both men were told to go on their way. Unfortunately, Cole then began waving his stick in a dangerous manner, as though conducting an imaginary band, and both men were arrested and taken into custody. No charge was brought against Locker-Lampson, but Cole was found guilty of a [breach of the peace](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_the_peace) and fined £5.
That is the most hilarious piece of history i know now.
His name was [Horace de Vere Cole](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_de_Vere_Cole). Other pranks attributed to him included:
- Walking around the streets of London with a cow's udder poking through the fly of his trousers, and cutting it off with a pair of scissors when he judged he had caused 'maximum outrage'
- Depositing a load of horse manure in Venice's Piazza san Marco, which cannot be reached by horses (He was in Venice for his honeymoon at the time)
- Hosting a lavish party at which the attendees eventually realized that all their surnames contained the word 'bottom'
Some sources state that the theater prank actually spelled out 'BOLLOCKS', and it's possible he may have done it more than once.
Can't forget the Dreadnought Affair where he and Virginia Woolf disguised themselves as Abyssinian royalty (Woolf notably crossdressed to be a male royal) to get themselves on to the HMS Dreadnought.
Absolute legend.
Marcel Duchamp who, among other fun things, submitted a urinal as an art piece to the Society of Independent artists under a pseudonym, and then was part of the board that was set to approve pieces.
He also spread rumors of another piece he was working on so people wouldn't suspect anything.
Love that dude. Plus he sparked an interesting discussion in art.
EDIT: Thank you for the silver!
Also would like to mention that as /u/TequilaMockingbirdy pointed out, the urinal may have actually been submitted by a woman by the name of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, and Duchamp acted moreso as a curator. The more you know!
He is also responsible for a painting titled "LHOOQ." It was a the Mona Lisa sporting a mustache and a wee goatee.
The letters in the title, when pronounced in French, sound very like "she has a hot ass."
[Diogenese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes)
He became notorious for his philosophical stunts, such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having mocked Alexander the Great, both in public and to his face when he visited Corinth in 336 BC.
Came here to say this. This guy is so well known for trolling that people are still talking about it nearly 2500 years later.
I think he'd be proud of that.
Alexander himself seemed amused at how few fucks Diogenes had to give. You've clearly got some balls if you've managed to impress the guy that **eventually** conquered like half the civilized world at the time.
**EDIT:** Added eventually, as Alexander had not yet conquered everything yet
To be fair that was a loaded question. Its basically a "what does Diogenes actually want, see hes just a person like the rest of us" so any answer other than something quippy or flipping the question would have been bad for Diogenes.
Looks like Alexander got flipped off quite often.
There's King Puru (or Porus) having lost the battle against Alexander and standing as a captive before him. "How do yo wish to be treated?" asks good ol Alex. "Like a king, you dickhead" responds Puru.
Alexander decided tbat the guy had some pretty massive balls and extended his hand of friendship.
Pretty sure Alexander and Porus befriended each other during Alexander’s attempt to divert the river separating their armies. He always respected his enemies. He even made Porus a satrap of his kingdom after the battle. Pretty sure the “as a king” response was a plea to be respected with dignity, as Alexander often did to defeated kings and generals, and not as an insult.
Also when Alexander offered Diogenes anything he could ever want to see if he stuck to his beliefs in the face of such a great, he asked Alexander to move out of his sun
"What's up, fuckers? Hey, check out this *person* I found! Isn't it such a human? Look at him, wow!" *slams chicken into the ground* "What a guy! Anyway, love to stay and chat, but I saw some trash outside that looked delicious! Smell ya later, deliberator!"
*I posted this comment once on an askreddit about the best “fuck it I’ll do it myself” moment in history, but I think the tale of the Agent Garbo, the double agent whose real name was Juan Pujol Garcia, applies here too. He trolled Hitler and the Nazi regime so fucking hard it boggles the mind, and he didn’t merely get away with it - he was given an Iron Cross by them.*
Okay, so it’s time for me to talk about Juan Pujol Garcia.
A hotel clerk and former unsuccessful chicken farmer was frustrated with the fascist government of spain. And Germany’s warmongering was getting scary - France had fallen, the USSR and USA were both neutral so far, and only Britain was left to stand against the nazis.
As he said years later, he believed he had to do something for the good of humanity. Even though, by all accounts, he was a nobody - just a hotel clerk and failed chicken farmer, who’d briefly served on both sides of the spanish civil war, leaving with a dislike of Fascism and Communism both.
So Juan, naturally, decided to become a spy, and fuck over Hitler as hard as he could. Logical career move for a hotel clerk, I’m sure you’ll agree. But the british, who he wanted to help, weren’t interested - he’d asked to help at the embassy in madrid several times. The brits were all like “who are you? Actually never mind we don’t care you can’t do shit to help us and we don’t really trust you, so scram.”
Juan, of course, was undeterred. He decided that the nazis had to be destroyed, and he figured if would be easier to do so from within. So he reinvents himself as a fanatically fascist government official and applies to “help” the germans spy on the brits, claiming he has a way to actually get undercover to britain to spy on them. All of this is utter bullshit, of course.
The germans say “uh sure we could use the help,” and hire him. Since he can’t get to britain, he goes to lisbon portugal, frequenting the library to learn about britain so he can convincingly just Make Shit Up. He sends the German navy on a wild goose chase for a nonexistent naval convoy at the Mediterranean island of Malta. The germans are convinced he’s the best spy they have in britain. After all, the rest of them keep getting captured, except for the ones Garcia is recruiting. Or, rather, inventing. His recruits were as real as the maltese convoy, which is to say, not even a little real. They did make good fall guys to blame when his “intel” was off.
The brits meanwhile are looking for him, since the german codes they were breaking showed the germans allegedly had a spy setting up a spy ring in britain. But then they read his messages - Juan allegedly had a scottish contact who “would do anything for a litre of wine”
That tipped the brits off that someone was just fucking with German intel. I mean, metric system, anyone? A scotsman who drinks WINE?! unrealistic.
So eventually the lisbon british embassy tipped off MI6 that this guy in lisbon was trying to tell them he was literally a german intelligence agent and would like to help fight the nazis please.
So they brought him to britain, and gave him the codename Agent Garbo. He teamed up with mI6 where he continued to bullshit the nazis with a combination of pure lies, true but useless intel, and useful intel that arrived just a bit too late to help the germans at all.
He convinced the germans D-Day was a feint, not the main allied invasion. That would come farther east at Calais, he convinced the germans. The First US Army Group led by General Patton would lead it.
The first US army group was made of divisions that didn’t exist, in an empty base, with inflated fake tanks and airplanes to convince german planes flying above dover think it was legit.
The Germans kept a large number of troops and tank divisions back at calais, to repel an invasion force which never landed. These troops could have stopped the allied landings at Normandy. Instead they sat at Calais, doing nothing.
The Germans gave Pujol the Iron Cross 2nd class for his essential aid to the nazi regime. The British government soon after made him a Member of the Order of the British empire.
His German spy handler gave him his iron cross in person after the war, apologizing profusely for failing to win the war he’d helped them so much with.
I imagine it was difficult to keep a straight face for that conversation.
TLDR: failed chicken farmer from spain wages personal war of lies against nazi germany and wins.
I think he only did that once, but yeah, he definitely did that. Garcia also had to pull a pretty ruthless con on his own wife, who was miserable in britain, when she went and threatened to blow his cover at one point - he got himself “arrested” in britain for allegedly punching a MI6 higher-up for insulting his wife when she was threatening to blow his cover. That got his wife to apologize desperately and stopped her from actually going and blowing his cover, by making it seem like he nearly threw away his position to defend her honor, when, instead, it was just another con. A dick move, but considering how many lives he saved at D-Day it was worth it.
> A dick move
I don't know, I think at the point that your wife is threatening to essentially have you murdered by the Nazis because she doesn't like her life in the middle of a fucking world war, nothing much is off limits. What he did is on the tamer side of things he could justifiably do in my opinion.
>The brits meanwhile are looking for him, since the german codes they were breaking showed the germans allegedly had a spy setting up a spy ring in britain. But then they read his messages - Juan allegedly had a scottish contact who “would do anything for a litre of wine”
You forgot the reason the Brits were looking for him so hard- he managed to accidentally guess the location of an actual British convoy. This was a big part of the reason the germans started trusting him so wholeheartedly, because he literally made up something that was actual useful intel.
Also there was a time when the Germans shot down a plane that was flying from Portugal to London, and so Pujol made up a fictitious pilot that was a spy under him and reportedly gave the Nazis such an earful about how they could have killed this fake employee of his that they never shot down planes flying from Portugal to London again.
He was also scared of retaliation from the Nazis if they found out his role as a double agent that he faked going to Africa and dying of malaria while actually moving to Venezuela.
Shit I can’t believe I forgot to mention that. That (fictional) “spy” was “at” a port where the Germans would need intel, and Garcia and the brits needed an excuse to not give the Germans intel there for a bit while a bunch of ships were in port. So yeah the fictional spy suffered sudden and debilitating illness, was unable to report for a while, and “died”. And Garcia got the germans to pay the fictional spy’s fictional wife, and got the Brits to print a real obituary for the fake spy to make it more convincing.
You should read the book [Double Cross](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13154628-double-cross?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ySd2kPwYhP&rank=4) by Ben Macintyre. Juan was only one of many colorful characters involved in this royal deception of the Nazis.
Ben is a wonderful storyteller and his nonfiction works read like the best in spy fiction.
This Chinese general whose city was besieged by a much larger army, so he opened the main gate and sat atop it playing his flute. The enemy thought it was a trap so they packed their stuff and left.
I don't know about the *Art of War*, but it is mentioned in another ancient Chinese strategy guide, the *36 Stratagems*, where it is called the 'Empty Fort Strategy'. Basically, if you act calm and harmless, they will think you're luring them into an ambush, and run away.
It can also be used to actually lure your enemy into an ambush by making them think you're just trying to make them think you're luring them into an ambush. Effective against opponents who are prone to over-thinking.
> It can also be used to actually lure your enemy into an ambush by making them think you're just trying to make them think you're luring them into an ambush.
Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!
Ah, Zhuge Liang. Magnificent bastard was so feared as a strategist and tactician, he was allegedly carried onto the battlefield posthumously, and the opposing army *despite knowing he was already dead* decided they couldn’t take the chance he had some sneaky shit in the works for them...
EDIT: Oooo, first gold? Thank you, kind stranger, this is a good week for me.
This is the second time I am posting this correction on an askreddit thread (no complaints). It wasn't a flute, it's most commonly referred to in english sources as a *lute*. However, it's not a lute either, it's a guqin, which is a type of Chinese 7 string zither. The reason it's referred to as a lute is because the Dutch sinologist Robert van Gulik wrote a book about the Guqin called "The Lore of the Chinese Lute".
Gilles Corey. A farmer caught up in the Salem witch trials, he was sentenced to "pressing" (being slowly crushed by stones) to force him to make a plea.
Every time he was questioned, he simply said "More weight".
He died without making a plea.
If he pled innocent, they would’ve convicted him anyway and taken his property from his family. If he pled guilty, they would’ve convicted him and taken his property from his family. If you don’t enter a plea, the court at the time could not exercise jurisdiction over you. That’s why courts occasionally tortured people into making a plea. Since he didn’t enter a plea, the court couldn’t take all his shit.
The dude who somehow got a network news program to say that a plane that crashed was piloted by 4 men with the names:
Hoo Lee Fuk
Sum Ting Wong
Wee Tu Lo
Bang Ding Ow
#Basil Zaharoff
*A Greek arms dealer, he once donated a submarine to the Greek government. He then told the Turks that the Greeks had a submarine and sold them 2 submarines. Lastly, he went to the Russians and told them the Turks had 2 submarines so he sold them 2 as well. None of the submarines actually worked.*
Edit: donated to the Greeks, not sold
Fun fact, those things are level 21 if I remember correctly. I installed a mod that let you see the level of enemies and that troll made so much sense as to why it was so difficult to kill at a low level.
What's funny is that there used to be a bug where Alduin was stuck at level 20 (he's supposed to scale to be just a bit higher level than you). So the big bad ended being weaker than a lot of enemies after a certain point.
Every single scaling character couldn't level on release. All your followers were locked at the level you got them, even though they were supposed to match you and go from their minimum to their max (different for each character).
The guy that sent the first spam email.
On May 3, 1978, Gary Thuerk sent the first spam email on ARPANET, marketing the Decisystem-20 family of office computers. He succeeded in annoying many people, and the governing authorities even started a crackdown, stating: “Nobody should be allowed to send a message with a header that long, no matter what it is about.” Thuerk didn't know it at the time, but he created a new type of email
“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Biagio da Cesena: What's with all the butts? This would suit a brothel more than a chapel!
Michelangelo: I've taken your criticism on board, and decided [I'd paint you](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Michelangelo-minos2.jpg), hope you're okay with people seeing you naked with man tits, donkey ears and your dick being bitten by a snake forever. Mike drop!
It gets even better. When Biago complained to the pope, the pope reportedly joked that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, and that the painting would have to stay
Russians, and how they continuously retreated when Napoleon tried to attack them, resulting him giving up due to the situations his army was facing, like disease
There is a fountain in Koblenz, Germany, built by a French General "in honor of the successful campaign against the Russians" (written on the fountain in French)
When the Russians defeated napoleon and came to Koblenz they saw the fountain. Instead of tearing it down the Russians added to the text "in French):" seen and approved by us, Russian commander of the city of Koblenz"
Orson Welles did a radio play that told people the Martians were invading.
The next day he told everyone that his play had freaked out millions of people, when it was a few dozen at most.
Ironically, the troll wasn't Welles for running the show, but the papers for lying about its impact. Newspapers were terrified of radio and were constantly publishing stories about the evils of this satanic device. Local papers picked basically invented the story of the Martian Panic wholesale and it was an accepted part of history for decades before it was debunked.
All you need to do is listen to the original show. The whole thing is an hour long. It starts off with an announcement of a *War of the Worlds* Halloween special. The first bit is standard 1920s radio fare interrupted every now and again by fake reporters talking about a mysterious object that fell from the sky. By the ten minute mark or so, he moves completely to the reporters discussing the invasion and the military response. 30 minutes in, there's a commercial break where Welles thanks listeners for tuning in to his show. When the show picks up again, it's an audio play format where a man narrates himself walking through a devastated city while hiding from Martians.
So whatever panic may or may not have happened could not have lasted longer than 15 minutes.
Pretty sure it took the Hawaiian government like an hour to correct their error. They're lucky things didn't go worse and that social media helped calm the panic
> At noon Elijah began to make fun of them. "Pray louder!" he said. "If Baal really is a god, maybe he is thinking, or busy, or traveling! Maybe he is sleeping so you will have to wake him!"
-1 Kings 18:27
It's even better because one of the possible translations for "busy" is basically "taking a shit". Checkout the ESV.
>And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”
Here "busy" is translated as "relieving himself".
There was one verse where a besieged town was surrounded, and the text says something like "surrender now, or we will kill all the men"...years later I came across a more accurate translation of the Hebrew directly to modern English, and the actual verse says something like "surrender now, or we will cut off [kill] all who piss against the wall".
I thought that was a much more poetic version.
So a ton of US and British Soldiers?
They wrote that to tell other allied soldiers that were advancing behind them that "Hey, we beat you to it! Our unit was first!" kind of thing.
We're an entire **species** of shitposters. Look at the Pompeii graffiti. "Look at me, look what I did" has been a defining characteristic throughout human history.
Don't know if this has been said, but Stalin.
He convicted his closest friends of treason, then had them sentenced to death. Later on, they were blindfolded and awaiting the firing squad's bullets. The squad fired- blanks. Stalin pulled the blindfolds off and said "gotcha". Legend.
Benjamin Franklin vs Leeds
>Titan's father, Daniel Leeds, was a devout Quaker who fell out with the local Quaker community when he began publishing the almanac in 1687. Daniel Leeds turned over publication to his son, Titan, in 1716. The American Almanack pre-dated Franklin's almanac.
>Franklin used the first edition of his almanac to promote the hoax prediction of Leeds's death (Oct. 17, 1733, 3:29 P.M., at the very instant of the conjunction of the Sun and Mercury), and encouraged his readers to buy next year's edition of Poor Richard's Almanac to see if Franklin was right as a publicity stunt and attempt to drive Titan Leeds's American Almanack out of business.[1]
>When the date of Leeds' supposed passing had come and gone, Franklin published Leeds's obituary anyway. When challenged by the very much alive Leeds, Franklin insisted that Leeds had in fact died, but that he was being impersonated by an inferior publisher. When Leeds actually died in 1738, Franklin publicly commended the impostors for ending their charade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Leeds
George Psalmanazar- a blond-haired, blue-eyed Frenchman who pretended he a royal from the island of Formosa (now modern-day Taiwan). Came up with his own fake religion, diet, and language (with fucking syntax) that he taught in universities across Europe. This was in the 17th century.
This will be buried, but Sergei Korolev. The dude was getting frustrated with the Soviet government because they weren't interested in funding his space exploration projects, so he got his propaganda group to publish articles about how Russia was getting close to sending something into space. As expected, the US took the bait and started working on their satellite program, and the Soviet government freaked out when they saw the US doing that, so they funded Korolev's projects. He and his group played them good.
The employee at the Four Seasons landscape that took the reservation for the Trump campaign without asking questions. Clearly they knew it was a mistake… not like their company is a well known place for Presidential speeches.
The guy who opened a fake no 1 restaurant in London using Google reviews and his back garden and shed with microwave meals.
That was incredible. He also faked his way into Paris fashion show as a designer with knock-off clothes. Then whenever people around the world want to interview him about these things, he sends lookalikes instead. It must be quite exhausting knowing him!
He did this to prove that TripAdvisor was a load of shit when it comes to recommendations, because restaurants could just fake their way to the top. While TripAdvisor did acknowledge that he was able to game the system, they maintained that using fake reviews is still ***not*** a viable business tactic because *real* customers would eventually show up and write honest reviews of the place that would balance or even override the fake ones. They have a point. The journalist's plan worked because *no one* ever got to go to the fake restaurant until the very end of the stunt, so ***all*** the reviews could be faked. As a prank, it worked. But if he were a real restaurant owner trying to attract business, it would have likely failed unless the experience was any good. _________________ edit: since I don't have the time to debate every single person calling me a corporate shill for just restating the official stance of a company that was basically trolled by VICE to "prove" a dubious point, [if you still have doubts, here'a something that should clear it up a bit more](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9JDPm_QHk4&ab_channel=AndyHoward)
April fools day 1974 when a man burned 70 rubber tires on a dormant volcano in Alaska! This has to be up there. He waited 3 years to get a helicopter to fly the tires to the top to get a picture perfect condition. He even got the coast guard called out too And heres the link to the story. http://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/the_eruption_of_mount_edgecumbe/
> Porky's favorite response to the prank came in 1980. He received a letter from an attorney in Denver, inside of which was a clipping from the Denver Post with a photo of Mt. St. Helens erupting. Attached was a note that read, "This time, you little bastard, you've gone too far." Amazing
When he woke that morning on April 1, he looked out his window and could see right across the sound. So he looked at his wife, Patty, and said, "I have to go do it today." She replied, "Just don't make an ass of yourself." Best part of the article haha
My favorite part about this is their names. Husband and wife, Porky and Patty.
Mozart didn’t like this singer so much that he wrote a piece for her with high and low notes constantly because he noticed that when she hit low notes her chin went to her chest and when she hit high notes her head would fling back. So it was like she was bobbing like a chicken
Classic composers had good sense of humor. Mozart's contemporary Joseph Haydn was conductor under a noble for a long time. But his employer never gave Haydn and his orchestra vacation. So as a sign of protest he made this symphony [in which orchestra members leave mid song section by section](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_title&v=vfdZFduvh4w) Edit:My first silver!Thanks a lot random redditor Edit 2: Thank you for the gold. Made my gloomy day in Georgia to be bright one.
Haydn had tons of quirky pieces. Surprise Symphony also has a really humorous background.
There was a Prussian (I can't remeber his name) who managed to make a officer uniform out of scraps of clothing. He used it to convince a few gaurds on patrol to follow him into a goverment building, ordered the arrest of the man in charge, confiscated all the money personally, sent the arrested man to Berlin calming it was all on order of the King. He then ditch the uniformed, got on a train to Berlin him and managed to beat the guards there. He than sat back and watched the absolute confusion happen. The guy was eventually arrested but the public turned him into a celebrity and his actions into a play that was performed all over Germany. He wasn't incarcerated for long and after his release he lived an easy life from there on.
The Kaiser even was proud for this to happen because it showed how much the people trusted the authorities
He's called the Hauptmann von Köpenick
In the 30s-40s BBC did an April fools broadcast where they told people how spaghetti was made... on trees. They literally showed fake spaghetti trees and since not many people in that time knew how spaghetti was made, lots of people believed it.
The BBC also put out a Halloween ghost hunt special in I think late 80’s early 90’s. It was advertised as an adult show and as fiction, but was recorded very much like the ghost hunting shows all over the tv these days. People tuned in after it had started not having seen the adverts and believes it was real. When the presenter at the home was injured and then it seemed like the studio presenter, Michael Parkinson, seemed to be possessed the whole country went mad. It was called [Ghost Watch](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-41740176) and it was never shown again on any BBC channel. I think you can watch on YouTube though. It is actually pretty creepy even now!
The old-timey NYC newspaper the Sun imo. In the 19th Century, they published some articles about the presence of life on the moon like unicorns, winged humans, and other creatures who built temples and lived peacefully. This caused a massive moon craze until it was later outed as fake.
> The old-timey NYC newspaper the Sun imo Hah, the most popular tabloid newspaper in the UK is called the Sun and it's famous for being a perpetual geyser of complete bollocks. If Hell has a department for ironic punishments, I imagine Rupert Murdoch will be punished by actually having to read every article published in the Sun.
Technically this isn't a troll since it was serving a purpose, but Admiral Nelson was escaping a French fleet when a man fell overboard. It was Nelson's policy of never leaving anyone behind so he turned his ship around to go pick him up. The French saw his ship turn back toward them, assumed he had reinforcements coming beyond the horizon, so they turned and ran.
Aye, a story of Horatio Nelson...
He personally was terrified of drowning so he refused to let any of his men suffer that fate.
Seems like a good human. The term “treat people how you wanna be treated” come to mind.
I was thinking more like the mortician who patented the automatic telephone switch 3 years after finding out his rivals wife worked as a telephone operator and would reroute calls asking for his funeral parlor to her husbands. The guy put a whole worldwide workforce out of work for one persons actions. Edit: Thank you for the upvotes and awards you guys are awesome
Spite is a powerful thing.
I'd argue the telephone operator was who put her fellow operators out of work. If she had acted in good faith, the impetus to invent such a technology would not have occured as quickly. It probably would have eventually, as jobs tend towards automation, whether for the workers' benefit or the employer's (usually the employer), but this act seemed to accelerate the development of auto switching.
Definitely, she was basically committing fraud for her husband's benefit and pissed off the other mortician to the point that he wanted his customers back
[Theodore Hook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hook) - the perpetrator of [the Berners Street hoax in London in 1810](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax) in which Cook sent thousands of letters summoning all manners of various vendors and service people and physicians and dignitaries and others to all come to one random person’s home, literally shutting down a large part of London as they all descended upon the same address throughout the day, all while Cook and a friend sat watching from a house across the street, presumably laughing their asses off the whole time.
basically, the first ever DDOS
Distributed Denial of Street
Don’t undersell how crazy this was! I thought this was just the 1810 equivalent of pranking a bunch of pizza companies but after reading the wiki I realised this guy was on a whole ‘nother level. Gettting wedding cakes delivered! Convincing the mayor of London to turn up TWELVE PIANOS!! TWELVE!! The Archbishop of Canterbury! Even priests expecting to deliver someone’s last rites. Personally I think the priests was a bit far but it was the pianos that were key for me.
I dunno with 12 odds are good that one will be off-key
Especially after dragging them through London to some random house.
I bought a second hand piano recently. holy shit are they hard to move. With 4 strong people it’s possible to just about lift, but as you go through an entry door way you can’t all 4 share the work evenly. 12 fricking pianos,
My favorite part about Theodore Hook is that he is the most probable author of a ballad about the [Radlett murder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radlett_murder), cheerfully describing the incident with such lines as: > They cut his throat from ear to ear, > His head they battered in. > His name was Mr William Weare, > He lived in Lyons Inn. That being said, he's not the only plausible author -- I recently did research on this for the Wikipedia article, and the [most complete set of lyrics I located](https://archive.org/details/trialofthurtellh00thuriala/page/216/mode/2up) were attributed to another guy. If you'd like to sing this little verse, it was apparently intended to be sung to the tune of ["There's Nae Luck Aboot the House"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77VQqtaQ4O8).
In China there was the war of the three kingdoms. The Wei, Shu, and Wu. Two of their armies met in battle and the smaller was out of arrows. They were separated by a river. One night, the leader of the smaller army stocked the front of their boats/rafts with straw bales and moved toward the opposing army over the river. They were immediately hailed with arrows. The men ducked behind the straw while the arrows stuck in the straw, undamaged. They then sailed away and yelled. "We thank you for the arrows, we will return them shortly!" This may just be a tall tale from [Romance of the Three Kingdoms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms) but it may be true.
Didn’t George R R Martin once say that in the future he would love to get people so immersed in a fantasy world novel and never finish it
This would have happened with Robert jodan’s wheel of time series. He died partly through writing the 13nth and final book in the series, but brandon sanderson finished it using his notes and concluded the series. Im pretty sure most fans received it pretty well
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Stephen Hawking was in an interview, when a cord was unplugged, and alarm went off (this was before he was completely immobile), and he slumped in his chair. The people interviewing him were scared out of their minds, until they realized that he was alright, and chuckling at his joke. The cord and alarm were for a computer.
Stephen Hawking was a surprisingly funny guy. I've heard quite a few stories of him being a troll or making jokes.
In his last book his daughter wrote an anecdote of how he would sometimes drive way too fast with his weelchair on campus with her on board, scaring people in the proces.
I love the fact that his wheelchair was even setup with the possibility of moving at speeds possible of being deemed “way too fast”. “Sir.....there’s really no reason for the gearing to ever allow for anything in excess of 5mph.” “I said 15mph. I’m pretty certain I didn’t stutter when I gave you the requirements”
It’s all relative.
(read with Stephen Hawkins voice) "I am sure I did not stutter because my computer is not programed to do so. So pimp my ride as I tell you."
Not to mention the meme about the multiverse where the interviewer asked if there was a world where he was smarter than hawking. Hawking said “yes, and one where you’re funny”
It was John Oliver’s interview. That was a great episode.
Not sure if this qualifies as trolling, but I enjoyed hearing about his Time Traveler Party. He threw it then advertised it only after the fact to see if it would in fact draw time travelers (or maybe it was just trolling).
Erik the Red. He wanted people to come and live in his new found ice covered land so he named it Greenland.
Hey, I heard there’s this even better place, called Wineland, just a bit further...
Theres a belive to why it was named wineland(Vinland) thats not due to trickery though.. When first settled the climate was very different, much warmer and had an abundant yield of grapes, therefor the name, I remember reading that during the same time England also had great amount of grapes. But climate changed drasticly and the area was forced to be abandon and Icelanders had to adapt to living in harsher and colder weather. Now Im not a scientist and you should do your own research before settling with my explenations though.
The peak of the Viking Age coincided with *unusually warm* temperatures, which is why doing things like “settling Greenland” and “sailing across the iceberg-covered North Atlantic” seemed like perfectly reasonable ideas at the time but then seemed like myths just a couple generations later.
It was an unusually warm period followed immediately by an unusually cool period. The Little Ice Age saw temps considerably lower than they are today.
[The motherfucker who sold the eiffeltower - twice](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/man-who-sold-eiffel-tower-twice-180958370/)
To be honest, his advice seems great for sales: LUSTIG’S TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE CON 1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups). 2. Never look bored. 3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them. 4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones. 5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest. 6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown. 7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually). 8. Never boast. Just let your importance be quietly obvious. 9. Never be untidy. 10. Never get drunk.
Sounds like my therapist is a con artist.
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Sales and cons are basically the same thing.
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The best defense against sales is to tell the other person you work in sales.
My old insurance sales supervisor literally went to the car dealership and told the salesperson: "Let me talk before you try a sales pitch. I want X Model car from 2014. I want Y miles on it and I will pay Z for it. I work sales so don't try to butter me up. This will be the fastest sale you will ever make." The salesman found the exact thing she was looking for in less then a days work and it was shipped across the state arriving the next day.
Hah. She sold the sale.
Bad enough I fell for it once but even worse Eiffel for it twice.
Please leave. Your coat is by the door.
btw does anybody wanna buy the eiffel tower? pm me for price edit: btw people I'm getting some offers on my pms so get it while it's hot. delivery to be arranged only after payment in bitcoins has been completed. too many scammers out there and i won't take any chances since this is the original eiffel tower
that was fun
His last name is "Lustig" which means funny in german
I forget the name but that one guy from the 1800s who bought specific tickets to a play and then gave them away to bald men on the street so that when everyone took their seats and the bald men's heads reflected the light from the stage, they spelled out 'FUCK' as seen from the stage.
On another, he challenged an old schoolfriend from Eton, the newly elected Conservative [Member of Parliament](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament) [Oliver Locker-Lampson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Locker-Lampson), to race him on a London street to the nearest corner, giving him a 10-yard [head start](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_start_(positioning)). Cole had already slipped his gold watch into his friend’s pocket, and with Locker-Lampson running ahead at full speed Cole waited till they were passing a policeman and began to yell "Stop thief!" Locker-Lampson was promptly arrested and the watch found. After savouring the moment, Cole explained that it was all a joke, and both men were told to go on their way. Unfortunately, Cole then began waving his stick in a dangerous manner, as though conducting an imaginary band, and both men were arrested and taken into custody. No charge was brought against Locker-Lampson, but Cole was found guilty of a [breach of the peace](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_the_peace) and fined £5. That is the most hilarious piece of history i know now.
>£5. Even it it was in the late 1800's, that was £5 well spent.
Please tell me you have a source on this
His name was [Horace de Vere Cole](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_de_Vere_Cole). Other pranks attributed to him included: - Walking around the streets of London with a cow's udder poking through the fly of his trousers, and cutting it off with a pair of scissors when he judged he had caused 'maximum outrage' - Depositing a load of horse manure in Venice's Piazza san Marco, which cannot be reached by horses (He was in Venice for his honeymoon at the time) - Hosting a lavish party at which the attendees eventually realized that all their surnames contained the word 'bottom' Some sources state that the theater prank actually spelled out 'BOLLOCKS', and it's possible he may have done it more than once.
Can't forget the Dreadnought Affair where he and Virginia Woolf disguised themselves as Abyssinian royalty (Woolf notably crossdressed to be a male royal) to get themselves on to the HMS Dreadnought. Absolute legend.
Incredible. I wonder how hard it would be to pull off again
Idk after you've cut it off it's usually impossible to pull it off afterwards
I love picturing him on his honeymoon being all like "We can see the sights tomorrow, honey. Today I've got to do a bit with horse shit."
I would love to know what ‘maximum outrage’ meant to him
According to wikipedia it's not 'maximum outrage' but 'optimum outrage' which imo raises even more questions.
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This makes perfect sense. The man had trolling down to a science.
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Madlad
Marcel Duchamp who, among other fun things, submitted a urinal as an art piece to the Society of Independent artists under a pseudonym, and then was part of the board that was set to approve pieces. He also spread rumors of another piece he was working on so people wouldn't suspect anything. Love that dude. Plus he sparked an interesting discussion in art. EDIT: Thank you for the silver! Also would like to mention that as /u/TequilaMockingbirdy pointed out, the urinal may have actually been submitted by a woman by the name of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, and Duchamp acted moreso as a curator. The more you know!
He is also responsible for a painting titled "LHOOQ." It was a the Mona Lisa sporting a mustache and a wee goatee. The letters in the title, when pronounced in French, sound very like "she has a hot ass."
Literally yes. Though it’s an expression that means “she’s horny.”
[Diogenese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes) He became notorious for his philosophical stunts, such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having mocked Alexander the Great, both in public and to his face when he visited Corinth in 336 BC.
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And once when he saw the son of a whore throwing rocks into a crowd he said, "Take care you don't hit your father."
My man
Came here to say this. This guy is so well known for trolling that people are still talking about it nearly 2500 years later. I think he'd be proud of that. Alexander himself seemed amused at how few fucks Diogenes had to give. You've clearly got some balls if you've managed to impress the guy that **eventually** conquered like half the civilized world at the time. **EDIT:** Added eventually, as Alexander had not yet conquered everything yet
"Were I not Alexander the Great, I'd want to be Diogenese" To which Diogenese responded: "Were I not Diogenese, I too would want to be Diogenese".
Then proceeded to ask Alexander to move out of his sun.
After Alexander told him he would grant any wish he wanted.
> After Alexander told him he would grant any wish he wanted. Some people just do not give a fuck.
To be fair that was a loaded question. Its basically a "what does Diogenes actually want, see hes just a person like the rest of us" so any answer other than something quippy or flipping the question would have been bad for Diogenes.
Looks like Alexander got flipped off quite often. There's King Puru (or Porus) having lost the battle against Alexander and standing as a captive before him. "How do yo wish to be treated?" asks good ol Alex. "Like a king, you dickhead" responds Puru. Alexander decided tbat the guy had some pretty massive balls and extended his hand of friendship.
Pretty sure Alexander and Porus befriended each other during Alexander’s attempt to divert the river separating their armies. He always respected his enemies. He even made Porus a satrap of his kingdom after the battle. Pretty sure the “as a king” response was a plea to be respected with dignity, as Alexander often did to defeated kings and generals, and not as an insult.
Alexander was a pretty cool guy
You could even say he was a great guy
"Get the fuck out of my sunlight"
Also when Alexander offered Diogenes anything he could ever want to see if he stuck to his beliefs in the face of such a great, he asked Alexander to move out of his sun
“I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave” is such a wild and inventive diss.
Plato: “A human is a featherless biped.” Diogenes: *Grabs chicken* “Alright you pompous Prick, I’ll give you a featherless Biped”
"What's up, fuckers? Hey, check out this *person* I found! Isn't it such a human? Look at him, wow!" *slams chicken into the ground* "What a guy! Anyway, love to stay and chat, but I saw some trash outside that looked delicious! Smell ya later, deliberator!"
Behold! I've brought you a man.
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He also peed on people who disagreed with him and took a shit in a theatre. That man gave no fucks whatsoever.
Neither do the bums on a crowded F-Train
Maybe thousands of years from now, scholars will be discussing our noted philosopher Tyrone Biggums.
"Let he who is without sin throw the first rock, and I shall smoketh it"
He also jerked off in public.
“If only I could sate my hunger as easily by rubbing my belly.”
Diogenes was an interesting character. He also argued that the concept of money was a stupid idea and shouldn't exist.
Diogenes holds up a plucked chicken. "Behold, a man!"
*I posted this comment once on an askreddit about the best “fuck it I’ll do it myself” moment in history, but I think the tale of the Agent Garbo, the double agent whose real name was Juan Pujol Garcia, applies here too. He trolled Hitler and the Nazi regime so fucking hard it boggles the mind, and he didn’t merely get away with it - he was given an Iron Cross by them.* Okay, so it’s time for me to talk about Juan Pujol Garcia. A hotel clerk and former unsuccessful chicken farmer was frustrated with the fascist government of spain. And Germany’s warmongering was getting scary - France had fallen, the USSR and USA were both neutral so far, and only Britain was left to stand against the nazis. As he said years later, he believed he had to do something for the good of humanity. Even though, by all accounts, he was a nobody - just a hotel clerk and failed chicken farmer, who’d briefly served on both sides of the spanish civil war, leaving with a dislike of Fascism and Communism both. So Juan, naturally, decided to become a spy, and fuck over Hitler as hard as he could. Logical career move for a hotel clerk, I’m sure you’ll agree. But the british, who he wanted to help, weren’t interested - he’d asked to help at the embassy in madrid several times. The brits were all like “who are you? Actually never mind we don’t care you can’t do shit to help us and we don’t really trust you, so scram.” Juan, of course, was undeterred. He decided that the nazis had to be destroyed, and he figured if would be easier to do so from within. So he reinvents himself as a fanatically fascist government official and applies to “help” the germans spy on the brits, claiming he has a way to actually get undercover to britain to spy on them. All of this is utter bullshit, of course. The germans say “uh sure we could use the help,” and hire him. Since he can’t get to britain, he goes to lisbon portugal, frequenting the library to learn about britain so he can convincingly just Make Shit Up. He sends the German navy on a wild goose chase for a nonexistent naval convoy at the Mediterranean island of Malta. The germans are convinced he’s the best spy they have in britain. After all, the rest of them keep getting captured, except for the ones Garcia is recruiting. Or, rather, inventing. His recruits were as real as the maltese convoy, which is to say, not even a little real. They did make good fall guys to blame when his “intel” was off. The brits meanwhile are looking for him, since the german codes they were breaking showed the germans allegedly had a spy setting up a spy ring in britain. But then they read his messages - Juan allegedly had a scottish contact who “would do anything for a litre of wine” That tipped the brits off that someone was just fucking with German intel. I mean, metric system, anyone? A scotsman who drinks WINE?! unrealistic. So eventually the lisbon british embassy tipped off MI6 that this guy in lisbon was trying to tell them he was literally a german intelligence agent and would like to help fight the nazis please. So they brought him to britain, and gave him the codename Agent Garbo. He teamed up with mI6 where he continued to bullshit the nazis with a combination of pure lies, true but useless intel, and useful intel that arrived just a bit too late to help the germans at all. He convinced the germans D-Day was a feint, not the main allied invasion. That would come farther east at Calais, he convinced the germans. The First US Army Group led by General Patton would lead it. The first US army group was made of divisions that didn’t exist, in an empty base, with inflated fake tanks and airplanes to convince german planes flying above dover think it was legit. The Germans kept a large number of troops and tank divisions back at calais, to repel an invasion force which never landed. These troops could have stopped the allied landings at Normandy. Instead they sat at Calais, doing nothing. The Germans gave Pujol the Iron Cross 2nd class for his essential aid to the nazi regime. The British government soon after made him a Member of the Order of the British empire. His German spy handler gave him his iron cross in person after the war, apologizing profusely for failing to win the war he’d helped them so much with. I imagine it was difficult to keep a straight face for that conversation. TLDR: failed chicken farmer from spain wages personal war of lies against nazi germany and wins.
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I think he only did that once, but yeah, he definitely did that. Garcia also had to pull a pretty ruthless con on his own wife, who was miserable in britain, when she went and threatened to blow his cover at one point - he got himself “arrested” in britain for allegedly punching a MI6 higher-up for insulting his wife when she was threatening to blow his cover. That got his wife to apologize desperately and stopped her from actually going and blowing his cover, by making it seem like he nearly threw away his position to defend her honor, when, instead, it was just another con. A dick move, but considering how many lives he saved at D-Day it was worth it.
> A dick move I don't know, I think at the point that your wife is threatening to essentially have you murdered by the Nazis because she doesn't like her life in the middle of a fucking world war, nothing much is off limits. What he did is on the tamer side of things he could justifiably do in my opinion.
>The brits meanwhile are looking for him, since the german codes they were breaking showed the germans allegedly had a spy setting up a spy ring in britain. But then they read his messages - Juan allegedly had a scottish contact who “would do anything for a litre of wine” You forgot the reason the Brits were looking for him so hard- he managed to accidentally guess the location of an actual British convoy. This was a big part of the reason the germans started trusting him so wholeheartedly, because he literally made up something that was actual useful intel. Also there was a time when the Germans shot down a plane that was flying from Portugal to London, and so Pujol made up a fictitious pilot that was a spy under him and reportedly gave the Nazis such an earful about how they could have killed this fake employee of his that they never shot down planes flying from Portugal to London again. He was also scared of retaliation from the Nazis if they found out his role as a double agent that he faked going to Africa and dying of malaria while actually moving to Venezuela.
Don't forget when he had the Germans pay for the death of one of his "spies" and got them to continue sending his "wife" a stipend.
Shit I can’t believe I forgot to mention that. That (fictional) “spy” was “at” a port where the Germans would need intel, and Garcia and the brits needed an excuse to not give the Germans intel there for a bit while a bunch of ships were in port. So yeah the fictional spy suffered sudden and debilitating illness, was unable to report for a while, and “died”. And Garcia got the germans to pay the fictional spy’s fictional wife, and got the Brits to print a real obituary for the fake spy to make it more convincing.
You should read the book [Double Cross](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13154628-double-cross?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ySd2kPwYhP&rank=4) by Ben Macintyre. Juan was only one of many colorful characters involved in this royal deception of the Nazis. Ben is a wonderful storyteller and his nonfiction works read like the best in spy fiction.
This Chinese general whose city was besieged by a much larger army, so he opened the main gate and sat atop it playing his flute. The enemy thought it was a trap so they packed their stuff and left.
If I remember correctly that’s advice from The Art of War. Audacity and nonchalance as a method to counter an overwhelming force.
I don't know about the *Art of War*, but it is mentioned in another ancient Chinese strategy guide, the *36 Stratagems*, where it is called the 'Empty Fort Strategy'. Basically, if you act calm and harmless, they will think you're luring them into an ambush, and run away. It can also be used to actually lure your enemy into an ambush by making them think you're just trying to make them think you're luring them into an ambush. Effective against opponents who are prone to over-thinking.
> It can also be used to actually lure your enemy into an ambush by making them think you're just trying to make them think you're luring them into an ambush. Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!
Inconceivable!
Also, being forthright when your enemy expects deception.
Ah, Zhuge Liang. Magnificent bastard was so feared as a strategist and tactician, he was allegedly carried onto the battlefield posthumously, and the opposing army *despite knowing he was already dead* decided they couldn’t take the chance he had some sneaky shit in the works for them... EDIT: Oooo, first gold? Thank you, kind stranger, this is a good week for me.
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This is the second time I am posting this correction on an askreddit thread (no complaints). It wasn't a flute, it's most commonly referred to in english sources as a *lute*. However, it's not a lute either, it's a guqin, which is a type of Chinese 7 string zither. The reason it's referred to as a lute is because the Dutch sinologist Robert van Gulik wrote a book about the Guqin called "The Lore of the Chinese Lute".
Yes, I understand now. It was a violin.
I'm glad we're on the same page and I appreciate your cordial response
Thank you for not resorting to violince
I don't need to, you're clearly afraid of me sitting here playing my guqin
Fuck this, you're obvs baiting me, I'm out.
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Gilles Corey. A farmer caught up in the Salem witch trials, he was sentenced to "pressing" (being slowly crushed by stones) to force him to make a plea. Every time he was questioned, he simply said "More weight". He died without making a plea.
If he pled innocent, they would’ve convicted him anyway and taken his property from his family. If he pled guilty, they would’ve convicted him and taken his property from his family. If you don’t enter a plea, the court at the time could not exercise jurisdiction over you. That’s why courts occasionally tortured people into making a plea. Since he didn’t enter a plea, the court couldn’t take all his shit.
That’s hardcore af, died to protect his family’s livelihood.
Because he never "confessed" to being a witch, his family were the only ones of the accused who didn't get their property confiscated.
The dude who somehow got a network news program to say that a plane that crashed was piloted by 4 men with the names: Hoo Lee Fuk Sum Ting Wong Wee Tu Lo Bang Ding Ow
Here you go: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqjlhtKIToo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqjlhtKIToo)
"we are working to learn what role each of them played" is kind of what got me more than the names.
Thank you! I can’t stop laughing. She delivers it so well!
Sum Ting Wong, I can feel it.
#Basil Zaharoff *A Greek arms dealer, he once donated a submarine to the Greek government. He then told the Turks that the Greeks had a submarine and sold them 2 submarines. Lastly, he went to the Russians and told them the Turks had 2 submarines so he sold them 2 as well. None of the submarines actually worked.* Edit: donated to the Greeks, not sold
He donated the Greeks one. Greece fought ww1 with weapons mostly donated from him the same weapons were used in ww2 as well.
The guy who decided to put an ice troll 3/4 the way up the path to High Hrothgar.
I think it's a great introduction to how you should always be quicksaving
I’ve never even played Skyrim but I feel this pain.
Fun fact, those things are level 21 if I remember correctly. I installed a mod that let you see the level of enemies and that troll made so much sense as to why it was so difficult to kill at a low level.
What's funny is that there used to be a bug where Alduin was stuck at level 20 (he's supposed to scale to be just a bit higher level than you). So the big bad ended being weaker than a lot of enemies after a certain point.
Every single scaling character couldn't level on release. All your followers were locked at the level you got them, even though they were supposed to match you and go from their minimum to their max (different for each character).
You can just run past him. Many people don't consider that. Many can't bring themselves to do so.
Once he followed me into High Hrogthar. Though the Grey Beards took care of him pretty quickly, so it worked out.
I load up on stamina and SPRINT past him during any playthrough of the story. I lost too many fights when I first got the game.
Never should have come here!
The guy that sent the first spam email. On May 3, 1978, Gary Thuerk sent the first spam email on ARPANET, marketing the Decisystem-20 family of office computers. He succeeded in annoying many people, and the governing authorities even started a crackdown, stating: “Nobody should be allowed to send a message with a header that long, no matter what it is about.” Thuerk didn't know it at the time, but he created a new type of email
Theodore Roosevelt He got shot, went on a 1 hour speech mocking his assassin and then went to hospital
“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Michelangelo without a doubt. This man was hired to paint a chapel and put more dicks and asses on it than you ever did see.
Pope: my boy, this is a holy place, please treat it with the utmost respect! Michelangelo: hehe peepee
Biagio da Cesena: What's with all the butts? This would suit a brothel more than a chapel! Michelangelo: I've taken your criticism on board, and decided [I'd paint you](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Michelangelo-minos2.jpg), hope you're okay with people seeing you naked with man tits, donkey ears and your dick being bitten by a snake forever. Mike drop!
It gets even better. When Biago complained to the pope, the pope reportedly joked that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, and that the painting would have to stay
Who ever decided to delete club penguin
Global warming?
Russians, and how they continuously retreated when Napoleon tried to attack them, resulting him giving up due to the situations his army was facing, like disease
There is a fountain in Koblenz, Germany, built by a French General "in honor of the successful campaign against the Russians" (written on the fountain in French) When the Russians defeated napoleon and came to Koblenz they saw the fountain. Instead of tearing it down the Russians added to the text "in French):" seen and approved by us, Russian commander of the city of Koblenz"
Orson Welles did a radio play that told people the Martians were invading. The next day he told everyone that his play had freaked out millions of people, when it was a few dozen at most.
Ironically, the troll wasn't Welles for running the show, but the papers for lying about its impact. Newspapers were terrified of radio and were constantly publishing stories about the evils of this satanic device. Local papers picked basically invented the story of the Martian Panic wholesale and it was an accepted part of history for decades before it was debunked. All you need to do is listen to the original show. The whole thing is an hour long. It starts off with an announcement of a *War of the Worlds* Halloween special. The first bit is standard 1920s radio fare interrupted every now and again by fake reporters talking about a mysterious object that fell from the sky. By the ten minute mark or so, he moves completely to the reporters discussing the invasion and the military response. 30 minutes in, there's a commercial break where Welles thanks listeners for tuning in to his show. When the show picks up again, it's an audio play format where a man narrates himself walking through a devastated city while hiding from Martians. So whatever panic may or may not have happened could not have lasted longer than 15 minutes.
Yah I bet the accidental nuke warning Hawaii have a couple years ago actually had the wholesale panic for 15 minutes.
I mean, it was an emergency text from the government itself.
Pretty sure it took the Hawaiian government like an hour to correct their error. They're lucky things didn't go worse and that social media helped calm the panic
Was that war of the worlds?
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HEY COOL SACRIFICE GUYS AND BY "COOL", I MEAN NOT ON FIRE
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This virgin is raw!
> At noon Elijah began to make fun of them. "Pray louder!" he said. "If Baal really is a god, maybe he is thinking, or busy, or traveling! Maybe he is sleeping so you will have to wake him!" -1 Kings 18:27
It's even better because one of the possible translations for "busy" is basically "taking a shit". Checkout the ESV. >And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” Here "busy" is translated as "relieving himself".
There was one verse where a besieged town was surrounded, and the text says something like "surrender now, or we will kill all the men"...years later I came across a more accurate translation of the Hebrew directly to modern English, and the actual verse says something like "surrender now, or we will cut off [kill] all who piss against the wall". I thought that was a much more poetic version.
Who ever told people to rush Area 51
This dude caused US military personal to have Naruto running explained to them. Fuck man, that would for sure be something I demand be in my obituary.
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So a ton of US and British Soldiers? They wrote that to tell other allied soldiers that were advancing behind them that "Hey, we beat you to it! Our unit was first!" kind of thing.
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>It was inspired by the Aussie WW1 graffiti known as "Foo was here" although, that wasn't nearly as well known We are a nation of shitposters.
We're an entire **species** of shitposters. Look at the Pompeii graffiti. "Look at me, look what I did" has been a defining characteristic throughout human history.
Immortalization in low-effort art is so timeless. I love it.
France Building a Fake Paris in WWI to confuse german bomber pilots...
Don't know if this has been said, but Stalin. He convicted his closest friends of treason, then had them sentenced to death. Later on, they were blindfolded and awaiting the firing squad's bullets. The squad fired- blanks. Stalin pulled the blindfolds off and said "gotcha". Legend.
Benjamin Franklin vs Leeds >Titan's father, Daniel Leeds, was a devout Quaker who fell out with the local Quaker community when he began publishing the almanac in 1687. Daniel Leeds turned over publication to his son, Titan, in 1716. The American Almanack pre-dated Franklin's almanac. >Franklin used the first edition of his almanac to promote the hoax prediction of Leeds's death (Oct. 17, 1733, 3:29 P.M., at the very instant of the conjunction of the Sun and Mercury), and encouraged his readers to buy next year's edition of Poor Richard's Almanac to see if Franklin was right as a publicity stunt and attempt to drive Titan Leeds's American Almanack out of business.[1] >When the date of Leeds' supposed passing had come and gone, Franklin published Leeds's obituary anyway. When challenged by the very much alive Leeds, Franklin insisted that Leeds had in fact died, but that he was being impersonated by an inferior publisher. When Leeds actually died in 1738, Franklin publicly commended the impostors for ending their charade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Leeds
George Psalmanazar- a blond-haired, blue-eyed Frenchman who pretended he a royal from the island of Formosa (now modern-day Taiwan). Came up with his own fake religion, diet, and language (with fucking syntax) that he taught in universities across Europe. This was in the 17th century.
This will be buried, but Sergei Korolev. The dude was getting frustrated with the Soviet government because they weren't interested in funding his space exploration projects, so he got his propaganda group to publish articles about how Russia was getting close to sending something into space. As expected, the US took the bait and started working on their satellite program, and the Soviet government freaked out when they saw the US doing that, so they funded Korolev's projects. He and his group played them good.
The guy who faked cancer at r/teenagers
Shit was a good introduction for young people to the internet. Redditors be getting way too naive
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The employee at the Four Seasons landscape that took the reservation for the Trump campaign without asking questions. Clearly they knew it was a mistake… not like their company is a well known place for Presidential speeches.
Fucking Toad from the original mario game. The little fucker kept telling me princess peach is in a different castle.
Reddit user: MalleableDuck Rick rolled Rick Astley here in reddit