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“What Are Some Events In Recorded History That Are Extremely Hard To Believe, But Without A Doubt Actually Happened?” (40 Pics)
History gets a bad rap as a dry subject. History can be fascinating when taught and understood correctly, and hidden throughout human history are extraordinary stories that would be difficult to believe if they weren’t so well-documented. One online community recently gathered many of these stories in one place, giving us an opportunity to review some of the most extraordinary and unbelievable events throughout human history.
What’s great about this list is that we get a truly broad range of regions and time periods. There’s tons of fascinating trivia in here to scratch that intellectual itch in your brain!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
There would have been a third, and a nuclear, world war and possibly the end of the world if Stanislaw Petrow didn't react like he did on the 25th of September 1983. In short: he was the only one that questioned the readings on the russian missle alert system and refused to launch nuclear counter-missiles.
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#2
There was a Japanese man called Tsutomu Yamaguchi who was on his way to work in Hiroshima in 1945, when he saw falling through the sky, two miles from where he stood, what ultimately turned out to be the atomic bomb.
He had just enough time to take cover in a ditch as the bomb detonated and miraculously he survived. Somehow the Hiroshima train station was still operational and so Yamaguchi, battered, bombed and bruised, decided to board a train to his family home so he could recover - in Nagasaki.
3 days later Yamaguchi was called into work to explain what he saw, which he did. At work as he began to tell the story of what happened, the second bomb dropped.
It was the reinforced concrete walls around him that saved him this time, and Yamaguchi quickly ran to find his wife and son. Ground temperatures in the city reached 4,000°C and radioactive rain poured down.
The family's home was destroyed, but Yamaguchi's wife and son had thankfully been out shopping - looking for burn ointment for Yamaguchi - when the bomb fell, and they'd survived.
Despite this ordeal of having survived two nuclear explosions and subsequent radiation exposure, Yamaguchi went on to live till 93 yrs of age. He died in 2010 after being recognised by the Japanese government as a 'nijyuu hibakusha', or 'twice-bombed person'.
#3
Australia’s Emu war.
Not only is it hilarious that they went to war with a bird, but the fact that they lost to the birds is the cherry on top.
#4
St Olga of Kiev. Her story is the ultimate revenge tale
I highly recommend people looking her up but in short, her husband was killed by a neighbouring tribe and she sought vengeance.
The neighbouring faction then sought to take over her own, seeing as she was a weak woman and ruling in her dead husbands place as her own son was too young. She invited them to her town as a show of honour.
When the large party of messengers arrived, they were soon attacked and backed into a massive trench that Olgas people had dug the nights before.
Standing over the trench she asked them “If they found the honor to their taste” and buried them alive. But she wasn’t even close to finished with her quest for vengeance.
She sent message back to the enemy saying she would accept an allegiance by marriage. Painting herself as such a feeble woman, that she would gladly relinquish her power to her enemy. But she requested all high chieftains to visit her town, to socialise and garner favour.
The chieftains came, she invited them into the bath house to relax before a feast. They were locked inside and burned to death.
But she wasn’t done. Her next feat is her most incredible.
After taking out most people of power from the other faction. She demanded tribute from their towns and villages… Not in gold, not in any material goods. But in the form of sparrows and pigeons.
Thousands were delivered to her.
The next night, she ordered her soldiers to tie a strip of sulfur to the birds legs, set it alight, and released the birds.
The birds flew back to the houses and homes they had nested in. And burned every village to the ground.
The sky was apparently a blaze of fire for days. Olga emerged victorious, and satiated.
Don’t f**k with Olga of Kiev
She is known, quite aptly, as the patron saint of vengeance and defiance.
#5
Christmas day 1914. The truce on the WW1 battlefields.
Shows the humanity inside everyone, but they were able to wake up the next day and go straight back to war, kill the men that they’d spent a sincere day with.
This was the first thing I thought of and I’m surprised it’s not higher up.
nukalurk replied:
On paper it sounds like something out of a cheesy Christmas story or some feel-good childhood fairy tale about the “good and bad guys” just randomly deciding to stop fighting and get along, except it actually happened during one of the most horrific wars in human history - albeit temporarily.
#6
The man who ordered all flights to be grounded on September 11, 2001, was Benedict Sliney, the FAA's National Operations Manager. He made his decision largely by himself, and with limited advice from his aides.
It was his first day as National Operations Manager.
#7
In 1944, during the allied invasion of France, 2 American paramedics, Ken Moore and Robert Wright, 101st Airborne, saved around 80 soldiers of both sides, allied and axis. They set themselves up in a church, had only what was in their first aid kits and medic bags, and had a strict no gun policy. The church was almost destroyed by a mortar shell, but it didn’t go off. It was almost destroyed again, due to friendly fire. Ken Moore would risk his life by venturing out of the church and finding injured soldiers, and both medics stayed behind at the church, even though the rest of their forces had to retreat. Wright took on the responsibility of looking after the soldiers.
The church still stands in Angoville-au-Plain, France, the blood stained pews are still there, and a broken tile from the mortar shell was never fixed, to honor the legacy of these men.
This is very simplified, and probably inaccurate in a few ways, but it is still an incredible story.
#8
The Battle of Halys
In roughly 6th century BC, the Medes and the Lydians were at war. The war had lasted for six years and climaxed at the Battle of Halys. During the battle, a solar eclipse began. Both sides believed that the Gods were angry at their long and bloody war, and were taking the sun away from them. They declared peace that day, and the sun was returned.
#9
There was another plane that would have hit the Capitol on 9/11. The passengers took over the plane from the hijackers and crashed it in an open field.
#10
My colleague was on the plane to Hawaii where the entire top of the plane ripped off… they flew the rest of the way without any overhead.. landed and everyone walked off. Absolutely insane to see the pictures. Talk about being given a 2nd chance..
que_he_hecho replied:
Aloha Airlines Flight 243 for those not familiar with it.
Not only could kids now not believe it, the public couldn't hardly believe it at the time.
Only one death, a flight attendant who wasn't buckled in a seat at the time the roof ripped off.
Barbara Skolly 1 year ago
Excellent Mayday episode of that incident. Also, keep your seatbelt on when possible.
#11
Roman emperor Caligula declared war on Neptune, god of the sea, and had the waves whipped and stabbed. His soldiers were ordered to collect seashells as prizes of war.
#12
The Four Pests Campaign.
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Mao Zedong, in his infinite hubris, thought that there would be no repercussions from an attempt to completely eliminate rats, flies, mosquitos, and sparrows. Plot twist: there were repercussions.
Millions of people organized into groups, and hit noisy pots and pans to prevent sparrows from resting in their nests, with the goal of causing them to drop dead from exhaustion.
Sparrows were replaced with bed bugs, as the extermination of sparrows had upset the ecological balance, which subsequently resulted in surging locust and insect populations that destroyed crops due to a lack of a natural predator.
The ecological disruption was one of several factors that led to a famine that killed 45 million people.
#13
In 1908 Russia showed up 12 days late to the Olympics because the world switched calenders while they did not.
#14
Everything having to do with Mad Jack Churchill. He reads like someone’s self-insert OC in a historical fiction based on WWII, except he’s all real.
He was a Brit who fought in World War II without guns, instead preferring a longbow, a claymore sword, and bagpipes. Despite this, he won. A lot. He single-handedly took a whole village back from the Nazis by taking his shirt off and stealthing around to scare the c**p out of them with his sword. After the Nazis captured him one time and held him prisoner, (under the mistaken belief he was related to Winston Churchill,) the prison was raided by the Allies and he was set free…or he would have, had he not already escaped 2 weeks prior. He was on the beach on D-Day, with men under his command, and held them up in their boat while he played a song on the bagpipes, finished, lobbed a grenade onto the beach, and then charged. The war ended, and he was bored, so he went to the Pacific to go fight the Japanese. That ended too, so he got bored in retirement *and invented river surfing*.
This is just a scrap of the historical anomaly that is Mad Jack Churchill.
the_avenging_knight 1 year ago
This guy is insane! If anyone ever invents time travel, we NEED him here.
#15
In 1903, The New York Times published an article about flying machines. They stated that it would take the combined efforts of all Mathematicians and mechanics 1-to-10 million years for powered flight to be achieved.
Anyway, about 9 weeks later, the Wright brothers achieved powered flight for the first time.
They were also overly cynical afterwards, In 1910 they said that flight would only ever be for billionaires, of course we had commercial flights by around the 60s achievable for many.
Kathryn Baylis 1 year ago (edited)
Sometime before then, the head of the Patents Office in DC declared that everything that could be invented had already been invented, so his office was just redundant. Right as the fastest and most prolific technological boom of all time started. Little would he know that, long before the brand new 20th Century was over, by the time a baby born that day was a senior citizen, we would go from the horse and buggy to rocket ships landing on the fricking MOON!
#16
On the 24th of June 2023, the most important Russian mercenary group marched on Moscow, just to give up a few hours later.
#17
During the salem witch trials, a man named giles cory was pressed to death with boards and stones to try to force a confession out of him. When asked for a plea, he simply said, "more weight." He never confessed, so he was never convicted as a witch, and his land passed to his son in laws instead of to the government.
#18
Harrison Odjegba Okene - the Nigerian man who survived for 3 days inside an air pocket inside of a sunken ship in the Atlantic.
Divers went down to recover bodies and investigate, and they discovered and rescued him. There is footage from the diver rescue.
#19
The Ghost Army in WWII. Essentially an American group of troops would deploy “dummy” tanks, broadcast fake radio chatter, and deploy loud sound effects over speakers to fool the Nazis into thinking there was a large military presence coming their way. The Ghost Army was used to deceive the Nazis and make them send their military presence elsewhere, which provided openings for the real Allied forces to move in. This was used in the later parts of the war.
I never learned about this in school but I discovered it on my own and thought it was fascinating. Imagine thinking a whole mess of tanks are heading your way but in reality, it’s a couple of inflatable dummies and a few speakers.
Michael Largey 1 year ago (edited)
The Germans tried the same thing, less successfully. They created a fake tank unit camp, with fake tanks made out of wood. The RAF let them know they weren't fooled by dropping bombs on in - bombs made out of wood.
#20
Halley's Comet appeared in the sky when Mark Twain was born in 1835. The comet moves in a seventy-five or seventy-six-year orbit, and, as it neared Earth once again, Twain said “I came in with Halley’s Comet and I expect to go out with it.” Sure enough, he died on April 21, 1910, just as the comet made its next pass within sight of Earth.
Red PANda (she/they) 1 year ago
I’ve heard this before. What a cool guy. Watched a documentary on him.
#21
The climactic explosion of the 1883 Krakatoa eruption, the loudest sound in recorded history. 50 miles away eardrums ruptured. Sailors 3,000 miles away thought it was a cannon. The pressure wave circled the entire planet more than three times.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
Hollywood made an epic movie out of this titled "Krakatoa - East of Java" (1968). Krakatoa is actually west of Java. Comedian D**k Cavett suggested that they amend the movie's name to "Krakatoa - Way, Way, Way East of Java".
#22
The Battle of Bull Run, one of the first battles of the US Civil War, occurred on and around Wilmer McClean's farm in Northern Virginia. Not wanting to live surrounded by war, McClean and his family moved to Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse was the last significant battle between Union and Confederate forces. The Confederates signed the surrender order in Wilmer's sitting room. It is said that the Civil War started on Wilmer's farm and ended in his sitting room.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
Location, location, location is important in other fields than real estate.
#23
1816, The Year Without Summer.
The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F).[1] Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest of any on record between the years of 1766 and 2000.[2] This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.[3]
Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies.
#24
The masses marching to the Berlin Wall and tearing it down only happened because earlier that day during a press conference, an East German official (Günther Schabowski) accidentally incorrectly said leaving East Germany was legal, effective *immediately*.
*"As far as I know this becomes effective..it is right away, immediately"* is still a famous thing to say in Germany.
It would eventually have happened anyway BUT it wasn't legal yet. However people just did it anyways because the guy got visibly confused during the press conference, and said the wrong thing.
The Scout 1 year ago
Schabowski just had come back from holiday, so not only had he no knowledge of the recent developments and decisions, but also was not briefed before. He just was summoned to this press conference and given some documents about taking back border restrictions. He was not a seasoned politician, either, just some minor government official, and clearly out of his depth. It was a tense moment, as, as the order was no in effect yet, there still was an active shooting order at the border. When people flocked to the checkpoints, the local commander decided to open up the gates instead of shooting (what would have been the formally correct action at the time). There are impressive photos form that day showing GDR border forces standing on top of the walls out of fear of being downtrodden by the masses.
#25
Most likely when the conquistadors under cortez wanted to build catapults to attack Tenochtitlan. After convincing him to halt the assault they built 2.
Unfortunately they didn't actually have any siege masters who actually knew how to build them but just a dude who was convinced he knew how.
When they fired them they threw the boulders straight up and they landed right in front of the catapults. This caused much confusion to the inhabitants of the city.
The incident was recorded by both sides.
I like to believe it inspired the character of wil e coyote.
#26
When the pyramids were being built, woolly mammoths still existed.
The last use of the guillotine in France was the same year Star Wars was founded
#27
This happened in Buenos Aires in 1988. An elderly woman named Marta Espina was walking near a carpet store when a toy poodle named Cachy fell from a 13th-floor balcony and tragically landed on her head, causing her immediate death. Unfortunately, Cachy also didn't survive the fall.
But the events didn't end there. Another woman named Edith Solá, driven by curiosity or a desire to help, rushed across the street only to be struck by a bus from the 55 bus line. This marked the second fatality caused by Cachy's fall.
And incredibly, there was yet another death. The identity of the third victim remains unknown, but reports indicate that a man suffered a heart attack while witnessing the entire incident unfold at Rivadavia street. He passed away in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
You guys can look it up. Crazy but true.
#28
The swedish king Gustav II. had to wear glasses (like... badly) but was too vain and refused. In battle, he proceeded to lose his direction and got lost in the smoke, leading him to land behind the enemy's lines. Needless to say he didn't survive that.
So essentially he died because he didn't want to wear his glasses. Wear your glasses, kids. Life is short (and so is your sight)
#29
The CIA sent hundreds of assassins after Fidel Castro. Plenty of cartoonishly silly plans too, from exploding cigars to poison hair.
One of the best recorded attempts was when they sent a female spy to seduce him and then murder him when he's not looking.
But in the bedroom when he realized her plan, he turned his back to her, she prepared to strike, he grabbed a cigar and told her "if your gonna kill me then do it already". She just stood there shocked, said she couldn't do it. Castro was like "yea ofcourse not" and they just had passionate sex instead. Wild story straight from the CIA records of the woman lol
#30
In 2014, Pope Francis released doves in the Vatican to symbolize his hopes for peace in the world. As soon as the doves began to fly, a seagull and a crow swooped down and attacked them in front of everyone.
#31
Nicholas Alkemade fell 18,000 feet without a parachute from a burning plane in 1944 and suffered no serious injury.
#32
The Great Molasses Flood.
“A large storage tank filled with 2.3 million U.S. gallons (8,700 cubic meters)[4] of molasses, weighing approximately[b] 13,000 short tons (12,000 metric tons), burst, and the resultant wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour), killing 21 people and injuring 150.[5] The event entered local folklore and residents claimed for decades afterwards that the area still smelled of molasses on hot summer days”
Christos Arvanitis 1 year ago
Information that might be helpful here.... this was in 1919 in Boston
#33
Ocean liner stewardess/nurse Violet Jessop survived the sinkings of the Titanic in 1912 & the Britannic in 1916 and was onboard the Olympic when it collided with another ship in 1911. Not really one event but a very impressive/scary track record.
#34
That time everyone died of a dancing sickness where they danced themselves to death in France. Mass hysteria.
ENFJPLinguaphile replied:
Yup! St. Vitus’ Dance, as it is called, still doesn’t have a definitely known cause, if I remember correctly, either! Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, please!
New research as of 2021 shows Sydenham chorea as the most likely cause.
#35
Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a fall of 75 stories while in an elevator in 1945.
#36
The Kentucky meat shower. Bunch of mystery meat fell out of the sky and no one had a clue what it was but they still ate it as they saw it as a blessing from god.
TheMongooser replied:
Wasn’t that vulture vomit?
WorldClassKlutz replied:
Correct, but that was only recently figured out.
#37
The Nutmeg Wars.
The Dutch and the English went to war THREE times over nutmeg, which at the time was only known to grow on one South Pacific island.
#38
Vesna Vulović fell from a commercial aircraft's cruise flight altitude of 10 000 meters (about 30 000 ft) in 1972. She not only survived, she actually lived normally for over 40 years more with nothing more than a limp. (after a rather lengthy recovery process, of course)
RedMarbles 1 year ago
"Air safety investigators attributed Vulović's survival to her being trapped by a food cart in the DC-9's fuselage as it broke away from the rest of the aircraft and plummeted towards the ground. When the cabin depressurized, the passengers and other flight crew were blown out of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. Investigators believed that the fuselage, with Vulović pinned inside, landed at an angle in a heavily wooded and snow-covered mountainside, which cushioned the impact.[1][a] Vulović's physicians concluded that her history of low blood pressure caused her to pass out quickly after the cabin depressurized and kept her heart from bursting on impact."
#39
The fact that there was a Volcanic winter 70,000 years ago which almost made Homo Sapiens extinct.
Estimates range from 1000 to 40 survivors repopulating the Earth.
#40
Lenin's body being put on display for 100 years (literally he died in 1924).
What do you think ?
Lace Neil 1 year ago
The time that people fell in love with radium, until a man named Eben Byers died from drinking radium infused water. His lower jaw fell off, he lost all his teeth and he had to bandage his entire head cuz literal holes were forming in his skull and it was the only way he could hold his disintegrating head together. Basically, his entire body was rotting from the inside out.
Ariel Andersen 1 year ago
And the radium girls, watch face painters who were encouraged to narrow the point of their paint brushes in their mouths. Many suffered similar effects.
Load More Replies... Lace Neil 1 year ago
The time that people fell in love with radium, until a man named Eben Byers died from drinking radium infused water. His lower jaw fell off, he lost all his teeth and he had to bandage his entire head cuz literal holes were forming in his skull and it was the only way he could hold his disintegrating head together. Basically, his entire body was rotting from the inside out.
Ariel Andersen 1 year ago
And the radium girls, watch face painters who were encouraged to narrow the point of their paint brushes in their mouths. Many suffered similar effects.
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