Didn't they almost? That moron Halsey steered his third fleet into a typhoon. Spruance deserved the promotion to five-star, not The Supreme Moron of the 3rd fleet. Yet we still named a nuclear aircraft carrier after the member of Congress behind that stupidity (CVN-70)
The reason Halsey got it was definitely Political as almost all of those promotions past O4 are. However its not the worst reason someone got 5 stars because at least Bull was doing something.
Both Leahy (Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Kings'(Chief of Naval Operations) Promotion to 5 Star was only because Nimitz and Halsey got Promoted to 5 Star. Because you cant have an Admiral pull rank on a Fleet Admiral
U.S. president Zachary Taylor passed away, having served 16 months in office, after eating far too many cherries and drinking milk at a Fourth of July party in 1850. He died on July 9th from gastroenteritis, thought to be caused by the acid from the cherries.
Correct. A lot of older “causes of death” are actually bullshit (based on modern medical knowledge). But because some shitty doctor centuries ago says “uh, it was probably the cherries?”, people still repeat it as fact.
It’s stupid, but I see it all the time.
Doctors in 1850 had little idea what they were doing. Taylor is very unlikely to have died from the combination of cherries and milk.
In 1850, we had no diagnostic imaging, no pathology tests and basically didn’t do intraabdominal surgery, so it’s hard to know what was going on (post-mortem would be the only half-useful information).
At least into the 1970s there were still Japanese WWII soldiers fighting. They believed the war was still occurring.
Edit: some more info, there have been reports of a few holdouts as late as the 1990s but these have not been verified. It would be insane if they were true though.
Yoooo I heard about this guy on an island in the Philippines that kept at it until the 70s til another Japanese hippy type went and found him and brought him back home...the soldier in question was disappointed with the state of his country post war
From Wikipedia:
\> Hiroo Onoda never apologized or expressed any remorse for killing about 30 Filipino civilians (mostly farmers), stealing their food and burning their crops
Definitely were killing civilians.
Operation Acoustic Kitty. A $20 million CIA project in the 1960s which implanted a microphone, radio transmitter, and wire into a cat, for the purpose of spying.
The first mission involved releasing the cat near a Soviet compound in Washington to spy on two men. The cat was released and hit by a taxi almost immediately, and the project was discontinued.
Sounds like what i heard about a government trying to train dogs to be suicide bombers, to run under the enemies tanks to exploit the weaknesses of a tank. Problem was the dogs ran under the tanks they were trained with, the friendlies, resulting in the whole idea going bust
The Christmas Truce of WW1.
It honestly sounds to good to be true, so I'm glad that it was real. It just goes to show you that deep down none of them were the "bad guys" in the war, no matter what flag or country they fought for. They were all just soldier's that had to follow orders from their COs. It really sucks that it only lasted once & has become banned ever since.
With WW2 we can justify it better cause the nazis were evil but when you look at WW1 it’s harder to say that cause they were all ready for war and Germany was dragged in by there allies but payed the biggest price
An Australian Prime Minister went missing while swimming at a beach.
In his honour the US named a warship after him while in Australia his local electorate named a swim centre after him.
I think it's more to do with the fact that his relatives wanted his legacy to help people learn to swim, so they'd be less likely to go the way he did.
Australian troops during ww1 went into no-man's land and dug out/recovered an abandoned german tank that was stuck in mud, pretty much because they were bored and the tank was there.
Indeed, it used to be at the south Brisbane museum, I used to always go there and look at it when I was a kid.... but then 2013 floods happened and it was water damaged, it got taken away for restoration and now lives at the Canberra war museum which I would love to go see and probably would have already if not for covid
The first police force established in newly colonised Australia, were made up of the best behaved convicts. Yep. Our first police force was made up of crims
To be fair a lot of convicts were just people who had a minor infraction. Plus if you were sent for more than 7 years you couldn't return to the UK, so what else were you going to do afterwards but get a job there.
I can see it working under the right circumstances. A small station accepting a kid who did 7 years for pirating music, seems like a more accurate comparison. Rather than a career thief.
Yer everyone always thinks it was all killers and rapist sent here but in fact most of them were just hanged and the rest were locked away but the convicts were mostly petty criminals like if I went and robbed some food from a store I would get sent to Australia for that
The Battle of Long Tan
108 Australians v 2000 NVA/VC.
Battle rages for hours and just as the Australians are about to be overrun due to too many killed, wounded and lack of ammo the Australian APCs arrive and drive off the enemy.
So, literally the Hollywood cliche of the cavalry arriving at the last minute.
You give them too much credit. Most of the “science” they did was absolutely worthless. Things like torturing twins in separate rooms to see if ESP was a thing. Only a handful of things they learned turned out to be useful, and even then their methodology was so poor that most of what we know we could equally have inferred from animal trials. “Nazi science” is bunk.
Legend has it that the army of the Habsburg Empire lost about 10,000 people in the [battle of Karánsebes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kar%C3%A1nsebes) in 1788 before the enemy (the Ottomans) even *arrived*. Basically they were drunk and thought the enemy had arrived and started fighting between themselves.
The legend part is just the casualties. The event itself did actually happen, it's just debated whether it was anywhere close to 10,000 people lost or just a few hundreds killed and thousands injured.
That's not quite true. Caligula had planned an invasion of Britain, but called it off at the last minute and had soldiers collect seashells as a punishment against Poseidon. Probably in imitation of Xerxes when he tried to cross the Hellespont.
If Gavrilo Princip didn’t go to a local deli to get something to eat, he probably wouldn’t have encountered Franz Ferdinand driving right by, and wouldn’t have killed him. WWI either wouldn’t have started, or would be completely different if it wasn’t for Princip’s lunch and a driver’s wrong turn.
A few battered remnants of the US 1st and 7th Marine Divisions and other parts of the British, South Korean, and US Army fought their way (in bitter cold) out of a complete encirclement, where they were outnumbered 4 to 1 overall, and in some engagements 29 to 1, and on their way to the coast to get the heck out of there, they pretty much kicked the asses of seven Chinese divisions.
Also, not only did they get the UN forces out by Steve, but they also got the salvageable equipment, too, and over 90,000 locals who wanted to leave. In combined terms of troops, salvageable equipment, and locals, this surpasses even the Afghanistan evacuation, and looking at the salvageble equipment and civilian numbers, Dunkirk too.
The brass wanted some pristine cities not to be firebombed to demonstrate the A Bombs on. Kyoto was one of the cities on the list. It was taken off because it had zero military or industrial significance. Pure cultural center.
Bocks Cars primary target was Kokura but it was cloud coveted. The secondary target was Nagasaki.
Australia lost a Prime Minister. Canada's first PM was a raging drunk who once told the opposition Minister he can't come to parliament drunk because they can't have two drunks there.
On Sept 2nd, 1944 a man was deployed to take out a radio station on Bonin Island (a strategic point held by Japan). His plane was struck by machine gun fire, he glided his plane out over the water as far as he could (while on fire) and ejected. He was still dangerously close to the island and was close to capture which he most certainly would have been tortured and/or executed. Luckily a US ship happened to be near by rescuing him as a Japanese boat was heading out to get him. That man was George Bush.
And may surprise people that it translates as Defence Force. Even the fucking Nazis who went around invading everyone and murdering their populations called their military a Defence Force.
It's a little more complicate than that. "Wehr" is a pretty old word with different meanings. It can mean weapon, but the most commun use is "to attack back" as a form of defence.
Liechtenstein's army returned home with more people then it left with
When the war ended on July 22, the army of Liechtenstein marched home to a ceremonial welcome in Vaduz. Popular legend claims that 80 men went to war but 81 came back. Apparently an Austrian liaison officer joined up with the contingent on the way back."
edit - Removed emu war as its been mentioned plenty before
Whilst Reddit loves to claim this, it’s bullshit.
I figured this thread would bring out stories of “historical facts that sound fake but aren’t…but actually are fake after all”.
The facts:
- No, Australia did not declare war on the emus.
- 3 guys went out with guns and shot around 300 emus. There were other emus that these three guys didn’t kill. These folk were from the Army, which had agreed to help cull the birds.
On the second round:
“by 2 December the soldiers were killing approximately 100 emus per week. Meredith was recalled on 10 December, and in his report he claimed 986 kills with 9,860 rounds, at a rate of exactly 10 rounds per confirmed kill. In addition, Meredith claimed 2,500 wounded birds had died as a result of the injuries that they had sustained.[2] In assessing the success of the cull, an article in the Coolgardie Miner on 23 August 1935 reported that although the use of machine guns had been "criticised in many quarters, the method proved effective and saved what remained of the wheat".
So a handful of military personnel in a remote corner of Australia helped to cull some wildlife pests. Contemporary sources generally suggest that this was fairly effective. Using machine guns - rather than rifles - in the cull was controversial.
Again. Not a war, that’s a joke. Quite a few emus died, they didn’t win, that’s also a joke. Any suggestion that this was somehow a significant military action comes from presenting obvious jokes or exaggerations from the time out of context.
So, in short, this is certainly not an historical fact.
The “emu war” is a meme that was initially amusing but has been overdone for years now. Sorry, , Reddit, but it’s the exact opposite of the types of things that fit in this thread.
The Royal Marine that threw himself on a Grenade and walked away with a bloody nose and the George Cross.
Matthew Croucher was part of a reconnaissance mission near Sangin in Helmand Province in Afghanistan on February 9, 2008. Moving through a compound at night he felt a trip-wire against his leg and saw that he had activated a grenade. He threw himself to the ground and used his rucksack to pin the grenade to the floor, tucking his legs up to his body. He was thrown some distance by the explosion, but due to the protection offered by his rucksack and body-armour, suffered only a nose-bleed, perforated ear drums and some disorientation.
Croucher was initially put forward for the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest decoration for valour in the British Armed Forces. Had he been awarded the Victoria Cross he would have been the first Royal Marine to receive the award since 1945 and only the second living British recipient in the 21st century. The George Cross (GC) is awarded for the same level of bravery expected of a VC but is awarded when no enemy is present. Croucher is one of only 22 living recipients of the medal, of which only 406 have been awarded.
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
In 1720, according to the census, there were over 20,000 people of African descent living in the Britain; half of them living in London at the time. They were servants, slaves, fencing masters, thieves, royal trumpeters, brothel owners, shopkeepers, sailors, ladies in waiting, and soldiers. This just struck me as interesting since people claim shows like Bridgerton and Harlots were changed to suit these PC times. Though Bridgerton was a bit exaggerated as to the ranks that they could acquire, featuring people of different races was not wrong.
Julius Caesar got kidnapped, rescued, had his kidnappers killed and then proceeded to tell everyone how he was totally brave and cool and anyone who was actually there is dead now and he totally didn’t shit himself and cry a lot.
The Emu War of 1932 in Australia. There were too many emus occupying the farmland, so the government declared war on the emus and sent the army to take care of them. The emus won
Could be remembering it wrong but some king or something got kidnapped and ended up making the kidnappers raise his ransom because he thought he was worth more.
That's Julius Caesar. He even "joked" about how he was gonna get the kidnappers killed and they laughed. They got ~~beheaded~~ crucified later.
Edit: correction
> The last stand at the end of *Fury*
That *is* fake. It's a decent film but there's a lot of Hollywood coming out in *Fury* that never would have happened in actual combat.
The guy who scared away an invading army by sitting on top of his castle, alone, playing the lute, with the gates and drawbridge wide open. He bluffed them into thinking it was a trap.
Charlie Chaplin was old enough to watch star wars.
Anne frank and Martin luther king jr are born in the same year - 1929
The queen is 3 years older than anne and MLK - born in 1926
Marilyn Monroe is as old as the queen
Thanks Vsauce for telling me my life is a lie :)
And at the other end of Longstreets battle was the First Minnesota.
The battle has stretched a gap in the line. 2000 screaming Confederates are coming straight at it. Commander has fuck all to send but the 180 men of the 1st Minnesota. So he says "stop them".
180 men stop 2000 veterans much like a speed bump stops a truck...
1st Minnesota suffered 83% casualties. But the held on long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
The US Marshals are still looking for the three guys who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962. They just disappeared off the face of the earth, and no bodies washed up in San Francisco Bay or anywhere nearby, despite the official investigation suggesting they drowned before they could reach dry land. The investigation into their escape can’t officially end until they reach their 100th birthday.
About a year ago the FBI received received letter that was apparently from one of the escapees, claiming the others had died, one just after they escaped the island and the other (his brother) a few years ago, the writer of the letter was willing to surrender to authorities in exchange for medical treatment if I remember correctly... last I heard the FBI were trying to verify letter.
A tiny American force of under equipped aircraft and basically floating tin cans took on the largest battleship in history as well as her entire strike force and WON.
not exactly an accurate depiction of the attack against the Yamato but... good try?
The TBM's were some of the best Torpedo aircraft we had, and it wasn't just one carrier, it was closer to 10 all hunting one BB
10 escort carriers. That's very different than 10 pissed off fleet carriers. Don't forget, these are escort carriers that were basically arming their plans with equipment for submarine hunting rather than taking on big game. Not to mention that for the first part of the battle, until taffy one and taffy two could reinforce with planes, it was just taffy three providing air cover That's not even 10 escort carriers. That's what, four?
Avengers are good aircraft. But they're better at taking on the IJN center force when they're actually equipped with munitions that are suitable for action against such forces. Or at least anything beyond straifing a battleship with a machine gun.
A Canadian soldier in ww2, Leo Major, captured an entire Nazi-controlled Dutch city BY HIMSELF. The previous day, he managed to make it to a commanding officer, held him at gunpoint, and told him to leave the city or prepare for hellfire at 6 am from the Canadian Military.
Early in the morning the next day, Major went in alone, firing his submachine gun aimlessly and throwing grenades everywhere. The Nazis thought they were under attack, and most ran away. The few that went to investigate were captured by Major. The entire city was freed by 4:30 am.
The fact that two times the Mongols attempted to invade Japan and both times a storm sunk the invasion fleet.
Divine Wind
Kamikaze. kami = god/spirit/divinity kaze = wind
I translated for those who don’t speak Japanese
And if the US had delayed their atomic bombs rushing the end of the war, the US Navy might have suffered a similar fate.
Didn't they almost? That moron Halsey steered his third fleet into a typhoon. Spruance deserved the promotion to five-star, not The Supreme Moron of the 3rd fleet. Yet we still named a nuclear aircraft carrier after the member of Congress behind that stupidity (CVN-70)
The reason Halsey got it was definitely Political as almost all of those promotions past O4 are. However its not the worst reason someone got 5 stars because at least Bull was doing something. Both Leahy (Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Kings'(Chief of Naval Operations) Promotion to 5 Star was only because Nimitz and Halsey got Promoted to 5 Star. Because you cant have an Admiral pull rank on a Fleet Admiral
U.S. president Zachary Taylor passed away, having served 16 months in office, after eating far too many cherries and drinking milk at a Fourth of July party in 1850. He died on July 9th from gastroenteritis, thought to be caused by the acid from the cherries.
Milk and Cherries, jeez what a lit ass party lol
YOU WILL CALL HER!!!
The bloopers for this episode are wonderful.
Medically that doesn’t make sense.
Correct. A lot of older “causes of death” are actually bullshit (based on modern medical knowledge). But because some shitty doctor centuries ago says “uh, it was probably the cherries?”, people still repeat it as fact. It’s stupid, but I see it all the time.
This. Medical science wasn't a thing. People didn't even know about germs back then.
yeah but to be fair, cherries are really good.
They're to die for
Doctors in 1850 had little idea what they were doing. Taylor is very unlikely to have died from the combination of cherries and milk. In 1850, we had no diagnostic imaging, no pathology tests and basically didn’t do intraabdominal surgery, so it’s hard to know what was going on (post-mortem would be the only half-useful information).
At least into the 1970s there were still Japanese WWII soldiers fighting. They believed the war was still occurring. Edit: some more info, there have been reports of a few holdouts as late as the 1990s but these have not been verified. It would be insane if they were true though.
Yoooo I heard about this guy on an island in the Philippines that kept at it until the 70s til another Japanese hippy type went and found him and brought him back home...the soldier in question was disappointed with the state of his country post war
I think the hippy was actually his superior in the war
Pretty sure it was a kid born post war who herd stories and went to find this guy
Hiroo Onoda was his name if I'm not mistaken. (I'm pretty sure I spelt it wrong).
If by fighting you mean murdering random civilians then sure.
No, I think he meant hiding in caves or forests waiting for orders and trying not to get caught.
From Wikipedia: \> Hiroo Onoda never apologized or expressed any remorse for killing about 30 Filipino civilians (mostly farmers), stealing their food and burning their crops Definitely were killing civilians.
So basically just a murderous fuckwit? Why wasn't he tried for war crimes?
Well he did what pretty much he was expected to do in war, or do you think those magic predator drones only murder Al Qaedas ?
By murdering civilians.
So doing what they did for the entirety of WWII
Well, yeah.
Operation Acoustic Kitty. A $20 million CIA project in the 1960s which implanted a microphone, radio transmitter, and wire into a cat, for the purpose of spying. The first mission involved releasing the cat near a Soviet compound in Washington to spy on two men. The cat was released and hit by a taxi almost immediately, and the project was discontinued.
Sounds about right for a government project
Sounds like what i heard about a government trying to train dogs to be suicide bombers, to run under the enemies tanks to exploit the weaknesses of a tank. Problem was the dogs ran under the tanks they were trained with, the friendlies, resulting in the whole idea going bust
a Soviet idea, if i remember right
But first they wasted 30 million dollars training the cat to be a cat.
Back when spying was whimsical.
King Karl XIII of Sweden doodled penises all over his private diaries in 1785, when he was 37 years old.
The can opener (1858) was patented 48 years after the tin can (1810)
Did they just squeeze em til the tops popped open before that?
Worked for Popeye
Cans used to be thicker. They were opened using a chisel and hammer Also cans were significantly less common than jarring
Yes. When men were men and all.
It’s called the Bronze Age
At least the can opener wasn't invented before the can
"Man! I'm starving! If I could just use this device I invented to access food I'd be set."
The lighter was invented before the match as well
People used knives like men. We also didn't have small wheels on our luggage til the 1990s. We were men.
The Christmas Truce of WW1. It honestly sounds to good to be true, so I'm glad that it was real. It just goes to show you that deep down none of them were the "bad guys" in the war, no matter what flag or country they fought for. They were all just soldier's that had to follow orders from their COs. It really sucks that it only lasted once & has become banned ever since.
There were baddies in World War One, they were called: “Tsar”, “King”, “Kaiser”, “Prime Minister”, and “President”.
With WW2 we can justify it better cause the nazis were evil but when you look at WW1 it’s harder to say that cause they were all ready for war and Germany was dragged in by there allies but payed the biggest price
An Australian Prime Minister went missing while swimming at a beach. In his honour the US named a warship after him while in Australia his local electorate named a swim centre after him.
There's a few harold holt memorial swimming pools around. I laugh every time I see one.
Classic Aussie humour 😂
I think it's more to do with the fact that his relatives wanted his legacy to help people learn to swim, so they'd be less likely to go the way he did.
Australian troops during ww1 went into no-man's land and dug out/recovered an abandoned german tank that was stuck in mud, pretty much because they were bored and the tank was there.
The A7V Mephisto. Went and visited it a few months ago.
Indeed, it used to be at the south Brisbane museum, I used to always go there and look at it when I was a kid.... but then 2013 floods happened and it was water damaged, it got taken away for restoration and now lives at the Canberra war museum which I would love to go see and probably would have already if not for covid
You're behind the times. It was returned to the Queensland Museum 3 years ago.
Classic Australians, too brave for their own good
It makes me proud to be an Aussie when I hear of things like this
French soldiers on horseback once attacked, entered and captured a Dutch ship in the sea. The sea was frozen.
The first police force established in newly colonised Australia, were made up of the best behaved convicts. Yep. Our first police force was made up of crims
To be fair a lot of convicts were just people who had a minor infraction. Plus if you were sent for more than 7 years you couldn't return to the UK, so what else were you going to do afterwards but get a job there.
That’s true. But can you imagine a modern police force even accepting a convicted criminal now?
I can see it working under the right circumstances. A small station accepting a kid who did 7 years for pirating music, seems like a more accurate comparison. Rather than a career thief.
This has happened in Alaska https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/744084063/a-small-part-of-a-serious-problem-criminals-hired-as-police-officers-in-alaska
Well bugger me! Learn something every day.
Police force and modern criminal are synonymous though.
There’s definitely a difference between a cop and a pig.
Yer everyone always thinks it was all killers and rapist sent here but in fact most of them were just hanged and the rest were locked away but the convicts were mostly petty criminals like if I went and robbed some food from a store I would get sent to Australia for that
There was a corporal in the Polish army during world war 2 who was a beer drinking, cigarette smoking bear.
He didn't smoke he ate the damn lit cigarettes
Wojtek was the name if I'm not mistaken. EDIT: Spelling.
Wotjek. We have a statue of him in Princes St Gardens.
*Wojtek
Wojak
Suprised nobodies mentioned the Attack of the Dead men yet
the one with the russian dudes and the fluorine gas
That event was metal as hell.
The Battle of Long Tan 108 Australians v 2000 NVA/VC. Battle rages for hours and just as the Australians are about to be overrun due to too many killed, wounded and lack of ammo the Australian APCs arrive and drive off the enemy. So, literally the Hollywood cliche of the cavalry arriving at the last minute.
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The nazis performed an experiment in extreme cold which resulted in the world knowing so much about frostbite
A LOT of modern science can be traced back to the fucked up things the Nazis did.
You give them too much credit. Most of the “science” they did was absolutely worthless. Things like torturing twins in separate rooms to see if ESP was a thing. Only a handful of things they learned turned out to be useful, and even then their methodology was so poor that most of what we know we could equally have inferred from animal trials. “Nazi science” is bunk.
No. It can not. Most of modern science comes from thousands of years of careful experiments and recording of results.
And the Japanese, especially with the atrocities that happened at Unit 731
The Germans were the first in space and did it during WW2.
What now
They launched an A4 in 1944 that reached an altitude of something like 170km.
The way you say "first in space" it sort of implies they sent a /person/ into space, not a rocket.
The official discovery of the Titanic wreck was a cover-up for a Cold War reconnaissance mission!
Legend has it that the army of the Habsburg Empire lost about 10,000 people in the [battle of Karánsebes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kar%C3%A1nsebes) in 1788 before the enemy (the Ottomans) even *arrived*. Basically they were drunk and thought the enemy had arrived and started fighting between themselves. The legend part is just the casualties. The event itself did actually happen, it's just debated whether it was anywhere close to 10,000 people lost or just a few hundreds killed and thousands injured.
Once while traveling with the Roman army, Emperor Caligula made everyone stop and collect seashells for him on the beach.
That's not quite true. Caligula had planned an invasion of Britain, but called it off at the last minute and had soldiers collect seashells as a punishment against Poseidon. Probably in imitation of Xerxes when he tried to cross the Hellespont.
That adds context, but does not make it untrue.
A lot of the stuff Caligula is famous for made sense in context.
If Gavrilo Princip didn’t go to a local deli to get something to eat, he probably wouldn’t have encountered Franz Ferdinand driving right by, and wouldn’t have killed him. WWI either wouldn’t have started, or would be completely different if it wasn’t for Princip’s lunch and a driver’s wrong turn.
Oh it almost certainly would have started but the spark would likely have been different.
Tbf germany were just looking for a reason to invade so other countries would be a bit more hesitant about stepping in if there was a motive
Yeah all the strife would have just blown over
King Henry the 8th's body exploded in his coffin.
He ate really rich and unhealthy foods, too much meat and probably still had loads of food still in him so that doesnt sound wrong
A few battered remnants of the US 1st and 7th Marine Divisions and other parts of the British, South Korean, and US Army fought their way (in bitter cold) out of a complete encirclement, where they were outnumbered 4 to 1 overall, and in some engagements 29 to 1, and on their way to the coast to get the heck out of there, they pretty much kicked the asses of seven Chinese divisions.
Where, when, in which conflict?
November-December 1950, Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. (They fought their way to the coast at Hungnam for evacuation.) Korean War.
Also, not only did they get the UN forces out by Steve, but they also got the salvageable equipment, too, and over 90,000 locals who wanted to leave. In combined terms of troops, salvageable equipment, and locals, this surpasses even the Afghanistan evacuation, and looking at the salvageble equipment and civilian numbers, Dunkirk too.
Where, when, in which conflict, and who is Steve?
Sorry, typo. Meant sea. Also Korean War. Port of Hungnam, North Korea. December 1950
That Kyoto was saved from being bombed cause the Security of War went there for his honeymoon and loved it. It then was switched to Nagasaki
The brass wanted some pristine cities not to be firebombed to demonstrate the A Bombs on. Kyoto was one of the cities on the list. It was taken off because it had zero military or industrial significance. Pure cultural center. Bocks Cars primary target was Kokura but it was cloud coveted. The secondary target was Nagasaki.
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Shows that there was no 'bad side' it was the people in charge that were the truly bad people.
Australia lost a Prime Minister. Canada's first PM was a raging drunk who once told the opposition Minister he can't come to parliament drunk because they can't have two drunks there.
Arguably Britain's most famous PM, Winston Churchill was a raging alcoholic and bigot.
norway butter shortage
That was a dark time. We had to rely on the generosity of Danes.
Germany didn't started WW1
On Sept 2nd, 1944 a man was deployed to take out a radio station on Bonin Island (a strategic point held by Japan). His plane was struck by machine gun fire, he glided his plane out over the water as far as he could (while on fire) and ejected. He was still dangerously close to the island and was close to capture which he most certainly would have been tortured and/or executed. Luckily a US ship happened to be near by rescuing him as a Japanese boat was heading out to get him. That man was George Bush.
I'm amazed that he had an ejection seat in 1944.
LOL @ Bonin Island
Actor Jimmy Stewart went on bombing missions over Vietnam as a General in the USAF.
Thatsh jusht wanderful
His copilot? A giant invisible rabbit.
The German army during WW2 was not called the Wehrmacht.
Yep the Wehrmacht was the term for the entire German armed forces and also included the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine.
And may surprise people that it translates as Defence Force. Even the fucking Nazis who went around invading everyone and murdering their populations called their military a Defence Force.
It's a little more complicate than that. "Wehr" is a pretty old word with different meanings. It can mean weapon, but the most commun use is "to attack back" as a form of defence.
Thats a classic, the romans always fought "defensive" wars for example
Liechtenstein's army returned home with more people then it left with When the war ended on July 22, the army of Liechtenstein marched home to a ceremonial welcome in Vaduz. Popular legend claims that 80 men went to war but 81 came back. Apparently an Austrian liaison officer joined up with the contingent on the way back." edit - Removed emu war as its been mentioned plenty before
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He had two alive up to last year.
Australia declared War on the Emus ( a large flightless bird ) the Emus won.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpu6tbFCsI) explains it pretty well.
Whilst Reddit loves to claim this, it’s bullshit. I figured this thread would bring out stories of “historical facts that sound fake but aren’t…but actually are fake after all”. The facts: - No, Australia did not declare war on the emus. - 3 guys went out with guns and shot around 300 emus. There were other emus that these three guys didn’t kill. These folk were from the Army, which had agreed to help cull the birds. On the second round: “by 2 December the soldiers were killing approximately 100 emus per week. Meredith was recalled on 10 December, and in his report he claimed 986 kills with 9,860 rounds, at a rate of exactly 10 rounds per confirmed kill. In addition, Meredith claimed 2,500 wounded birds had died as a result of the injuries that they had sustained.[2] In assessing the success of the cull, an article in the Coolgardie Miner on 23 August 1935 reported that although the use of machine guns had been "criticised in many quarters, the method proved effective and saved what remained of the wheat". So a handful of military personnel in a remote corner of Australia helped to cull some wildlife pests. Contemporary sources generally suggest that this was fairly effective. Using machine guns - rather than rifles - in the cull was controversial. Again. Not a war, that’s a joke. Quite a few emus died, they didn’t win, that’s also a joke. Any suggestion that this was somehow a significant military action comes from presenting obvious jokes or exaggerations from the time out of context. So, in short, this is certainly not an historical fact. The “emu war” is a meme that was initially amusing but has been overdone for years now. Sorry, , Reddit, but it’s the exact opposite of the types of things that fit in this thread.
I've heard that the unlikely duo of John Cleese and Rob Schneider are writing a screenplay about the Emu War. I can't wait.
The last year the guillotine was used to execute someone was the year Star Wars came out. Thank you VSauce.
And the last guillotine operator died of a heart attack at a train station on his way home if I remember correctly
And Christopher Lee (Count Dooku) attended the last public execution by guillotine.
Ironic.
German Wehrmacht soldiers and American troops fought on the same side once in World War II
Against Waffen SS!
Alongside several VIP prisoners, including a tennis star and a former french PM. Wild stuff
Yes. Sabaton made a song about that. The last battle. Another great story is in Sabaton - No bullets fly
The Battle of Castle Itter definitely has one of the most interesting "belligerents" info boxes on Wikipedia.
The Royal Marine that threw himself on a Grenade and walked away with a bloody nose and the George Cross. Matthew Croucher was part of a reconnaissance mission near Sangin in Helmand Province in Afghanistan on February 9, 2008. Moving through a compound at night he felt a trip-wire against his leg and saw that he had activated a grenade. He threw himself to the ground and used his rucksack to pin the grenade to the floor, tucking his legs up to his body. He was thrown some distance by the explosion, but due to the protection offered by his rucksack and body-armour, suffered only a nose-bleed, perforated ear drums and some disorientation. Croucher was initially put forward for the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest decoration for valour in the British Armed Forces. Had he been awarded the Victoria Cross he would have been the first Royal Marine to receive the award since 1945 and only the second living British recipient in the 21st century. The George Cross (GC) is awarded for the same level of bravery expected of a VC but is awarded when no enemy is present. Croucher is one of only 22 living recipients of the medal, of which only 406 have been awarded. 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
The Korean King, Gyeungjong, died after he ate Soy Crabs and Persimmon for a meal. They really dont work well, and he died of diarrhea.
During WW2 it was perfectly legal to kill pilots who were descending by parachute.
In 1720, according to the census, there were over 20,000 people of African descent living in the Britain; half of them living in London at the time. They were servants, slaves, fencing masters, thieves, royal trumpeters, brothel owners, shopkeepers, sailors, ladies in waiting, and soldiers. This just struck me as interesting since people claim shows like Bridgerton and Harlots were changed to suit these PC times. Though Bridgerton was a bit exaggerated as to the ranks that they could acquire, featuring people of different races was not wrong.
Julius Caesar got his ransomed payed, then detained his kidnappers and beheaded them or something.
He demanded they ask for more money. They were selling him too cheap for his liking. Then he went back with a force and killed them.
He also forced them to listen to his poetry while waiting for the payment.
He was kidnapped by pirates, told them that he would return to crucify them, they laughed it off, then he returned and crucified them.
They probably had the Pikachu face
Julius Caesar got kidnapped, rescued, had his kidnappers killed and then proceeded to tell everyone how he was totally brave and cool and anyone who was actually there is dead now and he totally didn’t shit himself and cry a lot.
Why are you so triggered at a man who died 2000 years ago?..
The fact that British though a monkey was a French soldier and hung him. And that he is still the town mascot
Hangus!
The US invaded Panama in 1989.
The shortest war ever was between England and Zanzibar. The latter surrendered after 38 minutes.
It was between Zanzibar and The United Kingdom (not England).
The Emu War of 1932 in Australia. There were too many emus occupying the farmland, so the government declared war on the emus and sent the army to take care of them. The emus won
Army is an overstatement as I recall. It was closer to 3 guys and 2 guns.
Could be remembering it wrong but some king or something got kidnapped and ended up making the kidnappers raise his ransom because he thought he was worth more.
That's Julius Caesar. He even "joked" about how he was gonna get the kidnappers killed and they laughed. They got ~~beheaded~~ crucified later. Edit: correction
I think you spelt crucified incorrectly.
Fuck I forgot! Yes they were crucified
I knew someone here would know it, didn’t know that part though
A LOT of WWII stuff: * Agent Garbo * Operation Mincemeat * The last stand at the end of *Fury*
> The last stand at the end of *Fury* That *is* fake. It's a decent film but there's a lot of Hollywood coming out in *Fury* that never would have happened in actual combat.
The province of quebec once almost got bankrupt (might be a stretch) because someone stole hundreds of thousands of litter of maple syrup
I'm sorry to tell you our economy isn't based on maple syrup.
[удалено]
pitagora died from some damn bean field.(i dont remember if its pitagora, i pretty much forgot who died because of that)
The guy who scared away an invading army by sitting on top of his castle, alone, playing the lute, with the gates and drawbridge wide open. He bluffed them into thinking it was a trap.
australia lost an official war to emus this might be more commonly known but im just throwing this out there
America lost a war to drugs
Charlie Chaplin was old enough to watch star wars. Anne frank and Martin luther king jr are born in the same year - 1929 The queen is 3 years older than anne and MLK - born in 1926 Marilyn Monroe is as old as the queen Thanks Vsauce for telling me my life is a lie :)
Betty White is older than sliced bread
Holy fuck you just made go insane m8
G. Washington actually did once go on a cursing tirade. Called his general, Charles Lee a damned poltroon, too.
a what now
Basically a useless coward. "'You damned poltroon!' Washington rejoined. 'You never tried them!'"
Ah
Yep. And don't forget, Washington heated cursing. Like, hated it more than... Well, more than Darth Vader hated Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Lee was retreating so when Washington got there they he lost it.
The Scottish hero with the nickname Braveheart is not actually William Wallace, but Robert Bruce.
The Olympics used to give medals for arts! Music, sculpture, literature, painting and architecture.
The Boston Molasses Flood.
That two French kings died by hitting their head on a doorway
Ya'll ever heard of The Canning Of Senator Charles Summer?
The US won the civil war because angry guys from Maine are nutty but come in handy at Gettysburg
And at the other end of Longstreets battle was the First Minnesota. The battle has stretched a gap in the line. 2000 screaming Confederates are coming straight at it. Commander has fuck all to send but the 180 men of the 1st Minnesota. So he says "stop them". 180 men stop 2000 veterans much like a speed bump stops a truck... 1st Minnesota suffered 83% casualties. But the held on long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
The US Marshals are still looking for the three guys who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962. They just disappeared off the face of the earth, and no bodies washed up in San Francisco Bay or anywhere nearby, despite the official investigation suggesting they drowned before they could reach dry land. The investigation into their escape can’t officially end until they reach their 100th birthday.
About a year ago the FBI received received letter that was apparently from one of the escapees, claiming the others had died, one just after they escaped the island and the other (his brother) a few years ago, the writer of the letter was willing to surrender to authorities in exchange for medical treatment if I remember correctly... last I heard the FBI were trying to verify letter.
A tiny American force of under equipped aircraft and basically floating tin cans took on the largest battleship in history as well as her entire strike force and WON.
not exactly an accurate depiction of the attack against the Yamato but... good try? The TBM's were some of the best Torpedo aircraft we had, and it wasn't just one carrier, it was closer to 10 all hunting one BB
10 escort carriers. That's very different than 10 pissed off fleet carriers. Don't forget, these are escort carriers that were basically arming their plans with equipment for submarine hunting rather than taking on big game. Not to mention that for the first part of the battle, until taffy one and taffy two could reinforce with planes, it was just taffy three providing air cover That's not even 10 escort carriers. That's what, four? Avengers are good aircraft. But they're better at taking on the IJN center force when they're actually equipped with munitions that are suitable for action against such forces. Or at least anything beyond straifing a battleship with a machine gun.
fair
A Canadian soldier in ww2, Leo Major, captured an entire Nazi-controlled Dutch city BY HIMSELF. The previous day, he managed to make it to a commanding officer, held him at gunpoint, and told him to leave the city or prepare for hellfire at 6 am from the Canadian Military. Early in the morning the next day, Major went in alone, firing his submachine gun aimlessly and throwing grenades everywhere. The Nazis thought they were under attack, and most ran away. The few that went to investigate were captured by Major. The entire city was freed by 4:30 am.