Strange and bizarre historical facts

In France, during the Middle Ages, a pig was tried, imprisoned, and executed for murdering a child. Not unique for an animal to be put on trial in this time period, it is still something silly. On the 27th of August 1896, the Anglo-Zanzibar War began between Britain and Zanzibar. It ended in minutes with one British sailor wounded and on Zanzibari's part, 500 were wounded or killed. This is considered to be the shortest war in history. At US President Andrew Jackson's funeral in 1845, his African Grey Parrot had to be removed because it was swearing loudly and often disturbing other attendees. We mourn the loss of the president of the united States.

After the death of Israel's first president in November 1952, the presidency was offered to Albert Einstein, who declined the offer, stating that he didn't have the natural aptitude to deal with people and being an introvert. Interestingly, Albert Einstein wasn't even from Israel, but his reasons for declining the presidency were rooted in his personality.

During the rule of Rome's infamous tyrant Caligula, he once bizarrely threatened to make one of his favorite horses a senator, claiming it could do a better job than human senators. However, before he could carry out this absurd idea, he was assassinated, leaving the plan unfulfilled.

In the year 1820, the town of Salem, Massachusetts, known for its witch trials, held a trial to determine whether tomatoes were poisonous. The trial was settled when Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate a whole basket of tomatoes without any adverse effects. Although it may seem ridiculous to conduct a trial on tomatoes, it's still preferable to the witch trials that took place in Salem during the late 17th century.

King Henry VIII had a unique position in his court known as the "grooms of the stool," whose job was to wipe his backside after bowel movements. In an amusing twist, all four individuals who served in this position under Henry's reign were knighted, making them knights for performing this unusual duty.

In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX declared cats to be associated with devil worship and ordered their extermination. This belief was believed to have contributed to the spread of the bubonic plague as it led to an increase in rat populations. However, recent understanding suggests that the plague spread too rapidly for rats to be the sole culprits. Regardless, cats are now regarded as cool creatures.

In ancient Asia and up until the 19th century, one of the popular methods of execution was death by elephant. Elephants were trained to execute people using large blades fitted to their tusks or inflict slow and painful deaths. While this practice made sense culturally at the time, it undoubtedly seems quite random and brutal from a modern perspective.

Lastly, the Volkswagen Beetle was commissioned by none other than Adolf Hitler. The intention behind its creation was to design a practical and affordable car for the working class. Despite the historical context, the Volkswagen Beetle went on to become an iconic car worldwide.

It's fascinating and sometimes funny how history has witnessed such strange events and decisions. These stories show that the past is filled with surprising and peculiar occurrences, making our planet's history all the more intriguing.

During the early 20th century, the Volstead Act, which enforced Prohibition in the United States, led to a bizarre practice. The U.S. government began poisoning industrial alcohols to discourage illegal drinking. However, this resulted in numerous deaths as bootleggers and consumers unknowingly consumed these toxic beverages.

Tutom Yamaguchi, a Japanese naval engineer, experienced an extraordinary stroke of misfortune and luck. On August 6, 1945, he survived the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima, despite being only two miles away from ground zero. Not stopping there, he boarded a train to his hometown of Nagasaki, where two days later, he survived another atomic bomb explosion. He lived a long life until 2010, leaving people pondering if he was an exceptionally lucky or unlucky man.

The Voynich Manuscript remains one of the world's most enigmatic documents. Dating back to the 15th century, it contains 240 pages of mysterious text written in an unknown language, alongside perplexing illustrations of plants and animals that cannot be identified. Historians and scientists have been grappling with its purpose and meaning for centuries, but its secrets remain elusive.

The reign of Cleopatra in ancient Egypt is closer in time to the invention of the smartphone than it is to the construction of the pyramids. This incredible perspective highlights just how vast and diverse human history truly is.

President Lyndon B. Johnson was known for his unique behavior during interviews. He didn't hesitate to continue discussions while using the bathroom, leading to reporters and aides awkwardly following him in to continue their meetings. Talk about a bizarre presidential habit!

Oceanography professor Robert Ballard's mission to find the wreckage of the RMS Titanic in 1985 had a secret twist. While the public believed it was solely about locating the famous shipwreck, it was actually part of a classified mission to search for lost nuclear submarines from the 1960s. The team succeeded in finding both the Titanic and the submarines.

During the 11th century, when forks were introduced in Italy, religious leaders deemed them blasphemous as they believed using artificial hands to eat offended the Lord. Although there's no evidence to suggest the Church as a whole banned fork usage, individual Roman Catholic leaders expressed their disapproval, making it an odd and amusing historical anecdote.

Adolf Hitler's medical records reveal a peculiar side effect of his health condition. To manage his frequent and uncontrollable flatulence, he took up to 30 different drugs regularly. It's an unexpected and somewhat humorous fact about the infamous dictator.

Australia's quirky encounter with emus during the "Great Emu War" of 1932 resulted from the government's attempt to curb the emu population. The Australian army, armed with machine guns, faced off against a group of 1,000 emus, but the birds proved too agile and evaded most of the gunfire, resulting in an "emu victory."

In 1866, Liechtenstein sent out an army of 80 soldiers to participate in the Austro-Prussian War. Remarkably, none of the soldiers were killed, and an extra soldier even returned, making 81 in total. As a peaceful and neutral country, Liechtenstein's army was disbanded two years later, a decision that has remained in effect to this day.

These peculiar and fascinating historical tidbits continue to remind us that history is filled with a delightful mix of eccentric events, colorful characters, and unbelievable twists. It's through these quirky stories that we gain a deeper appreciation for the complexities and oddities of the human experience throughout time.