sábado, febrero 25, 2023

 

More or less absurd historical anecdotes

(Read at https://www.ranker.com, in an article written by Joshua Ree on July 11th, 2020)

We talk a lot about fails during our time. But there are hilarious historical "fails" that have been memorialized throughout all time. We've compiled some of the best ones. Vote up your favorites down below!

1. Attempted To Create Propaganda
In 1985, North Korea filmed a movie in Japan. It was aimed at showing the oppression of Koreans living there. But the message of the movie backfired when North Korean audiences saw the relatively luxurious living conditions in Japan.
Source is mentioned in our blog www.unbelievablefactsblog.com
 
2. Attempted To Evade Suspicion
WWI, the Germans disguised one of their ships as a British ship, the RMS Carmania, and sent it out to ambush British vessels. In a hilariously bad stroke of luck, the first ship it encountered was the real RMS Carmania, which promptly sank them.

3. Attempted To Humiliate Women
In 1887, a group of men added a woman named Susanna M. Salter to a mayoral ballot as a joke intended to humiliate women. Instead, she won over 60% of the vote and became America's first female mayor. 
 
4. Attempted To Embarrass The President
When the KGB tried to blackmail Indonesian President Sukarno with videotapes of him having sex with Russian women disguised as flight attendants, he wasn't upset. He was delighted and asked for more copies of the video to show back in his country. 
 
5. Attempted To Stop A Boy From Reading
In 1959, police were called to a segregated library in South Carolina when a 9yr-old Black boy refused to leave. He later got a PhD in Physics from MIT, and died in 1986, one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The library that refused to lend him books is now named after him. Ronald McNair became one of the first three African-American astronauts to go to space. 

6. Attempted To Be Racist
In 1918, a black man named Laurence C Jones survived a lynching attempt from a white mob by convincing them of his passion to educate Black kids. The mob ended up collecting money for his cause.
 
7. Attempted To Operate Quickly  
In 1847, Robert Liston performed an amputation in 25 seconds, operating so quickly that he accidentally amputated his assistant's fingers as well. Both patient and assistant later died of sepsis, and a spectator reportedly died of shock, resulting in the only known surgical procedure with a 300% mortality rate.
 
8. Attempted To Follow The Rules
In Thailand, it was considered a capital offense punishable by death If someone touched the queen. In 1880, the queen drowned when her royal boat capsized on the way to the palace. The many witnesses to the accident did not dare to touch the queen while she was drowning. 

9. Attempted To Escape
Troy Leon Gregg, a death row inmate in Georgia, escaped the night before his execution only to be killed in a bar fight that very same night. 
 
10. Attempted To Hide The Alcohol
Prohibition agent Izzy Einstein bragged that he could find liquor in any city in under 30 minutes. In Chicago it took him 21 min. In Atlanta 17, and Pittsburgh just 11. But New Orleans set the record: 35 seconds. Einstein asked his taxi driver where to get a drink, and the driver handed him one.  

11. Attempted To Bring A Dog Into The Fight
During the Battle of Germantown, there was a brief cease-fire when a little terrier was seen wandering between the American and British lines. British General Howe's dog had gotten loose. It was taken to George Washington to keep as a trophy, but instead he took it to his tent, fed and brushed him, then formally had the little dog returned under a flag of truce.

12. Attempted To Win A Fight About The Bedroom Window
An extract from John Adam's diary for 1776 describes the time when he had to share a tiny bed with Benjamin Franklin and, instead of sleeping, they had an argument about whether to keep the windows open or closed. Franklin eventually won the argument when Adams got too tired and fell asleep. 

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