So when you think of history, you probably think of powdered wigs, wars, and that history class with lectures that put you to sleep faster than Niquil. But history's much more than the serious moments. History includes all the ridiculous mistakes and massive screw-ups made by people as flawed as we are. Here are five ridiculous moments in history that your professor might not have mentioned.
1. The Great Emu War
Yes, you read that right. The Great Emu War took place in Austrailia in 1932, and the emus won! That's right, not only was there an Australian war against emus, but men with machine guns and rifles lost to the large, flightless birds! What was supposed to be a wildlife management program lead to the death of only 40 birds and a declared failure by the Australian government.
2. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand
Everyone learns in school that WWI was started after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, but did you ever learn about what a train-wreck the assassination was? The first assassin was supposed to throw a bomb under the Archduke's car, but he panicked and timed it wrong, blowing up the car behind Ferdinand.
The first assassin tried to commit suicide with cyanide after failing, which didn't work. Then he threw himself into the river, which was too shallow to drown in, and was arrested. The other assassins lost their nerve and left, only for the Archduke's car to make a wrong turn placing it right next to one of the nervous assassin's leaving a cafe.
You all know what happens next...
3. Andrew Jackson's parrot
Presidential funerals are meant to be solemn affairs in which the people may pay their last respects to their former leader. Unfortunately, Jackson's pet parrot, Poll, decided that a different kind of tribute was needed. Poll had picked up some interesting language from his owner and decided to start cursing during the former Commander and Chief's funeral. The dirty birdy had to be removed from the proceedings.
4. Russian Bomb Dogs
*Warning: If you don't want to read about dying dogs, skip to number 5.*
When talking about WWII, Russian bomb dogs don't mean drug-sniffing dogs you'll find at the airport or at the police station. The Russian bomb dogs were dogs that the Russian military trained to carry timed bombs under enemy tanks. The dogs got the raw end of the deal on this.
Besides killing hundreds of dogs, there were two major problems with this failed military project. One, the dogs would often return to their handlers after merely running under a tank and back. Two, the dogs were trained on Russian tanks, so they would often run under Russian tanks instead of Nazi tanks on the battlefield...
5. How to kill Castro?
Obviously, no plan to kill the leader of Communist Cuba ever succeeded since Fidel Castro died at age 90 in 2016, but the CIA certainly cooked up a lot of crazy schemes to get rid of him in the half-century he was in control of Cuba.
One such plan was to sneak botulism pills into Castro's food. If botulism sounds familiar, it's probably because you heard about it in your history lectures. Botulism is the plague...
Castro was known to be an avid diver, so another plan was to contaminate the wetsuit of the leader with fungus spores and tuberculosis.
Still fixated on his diving excursions, another plan was to pack a large seashell with enough explosives to kill Castro.
Yet another plan involved the created on a lethal pellet gun that could fit inside of a pen.
And to end this list of ridiculous plans to kill Fidel Castro, the CIA wanted to lace his food with a chemical that would cause his beard to fall out. The CIA believed that Castro's beard was the source of his power and charisma...
