The Funniest Historical Events Of All Time

We All Fall Down

"Ancient Korea had special recording officials, whose job was to record everything. They were considered separate from the government, so the emperor of the time wasn’t allowed to give them orders or tell them not to record something."

"Of course, some emperors would try anyway."

"On one occasion, King Taejong (15th century) fell off his horse while hunting. The recorder nearby wrote it down. The emperor insisted that it be removed from the record, and even tried to have the report destroyed."

"This lead to some nonsense as the emperor kept destroying their work, but the recorders kept copying it and hiding it in increasingly obscure places. And of course, recorded the whole thing as it happened."

"A few hundred years later, and the only thing that emperor is famous for is trying to hide the fact he fell off his horse."

- lankymjc

"I picture some dude writing something like:"

"'at 11:35am on Sunday, the 9th of September the emperor fell off his horse'."

"11:37 emperor says 'don't write that down'."

"11:39 emperor tries to take book from me'."

"11:43 emperor fell in mud chasing me yelling 'Don't write that!'"

"11:50 lunch is being set as the emperor cleans up. He is upset today'."

- Cbanchiere

Monkey See, Monkey Won't Do

"During the Napoleonic wars a French ship sank off the coast of Hartlepool England. The only survivor was the captain’s pet monkey which he always dressed in a French military uniform. The locals freaked out because the law was that any French military found on British soil must be executed as a spy."

"So they ordered the standard punishment for spies—death by hanging. Except instead of dying, the monkey just kept climbing up the rope."

"Because it was a monkey."

"Hartlepool has since embraced their failure at executing a tinyprimate for military espionage."

"Their local football team mascot is H'Angus the Monkey."

- korar67

Crying Fowl

"Spanish chicken farmer Juan Pujol Garcia tried to become a spy for the MI5, but they rejected him. He then applied to become a spy for the Nazi SS, who accepted him. The SS gave him the order to start a spy network in London, but instead he set up shop in Lisbon."

"There, he started feeding the Nazi commanders a bunch of BS intel, based on publicly available newspapers and magazines. They were believable enough for the Nazis to accept it as truth, even though they were completely made up. Every once in a while, he would be confronted about 'bad intel'."

"He'd blame it on one of his fictional subordinates, and told his commanders he had 'rectified the problem.' In one situation, he told the Nazi's that his subordinate 'had fallen ill' and later 'died'."

"A fake obituary was placed in the newspapers to back his story up. He even convinced the Nazis to pay a pension to the (again, FICTIONAL) agent's widow."

"The MI5 became aware of his existence after they saw the Kriegsmarine waste considerable effort in hunting down a non-existing convoy, based on Garcia's (again, fake) intel. They enrolled him into their ranks, and that's when his bullsh*ttery started getting serious.

"He was given the nickname 'Garbo' in reference to 'the best actor in the world' Greta Garbo."

"Because the Nazis believed he was 'one of theirs' they even sent him an Enigma, to encode the messages he was sending them. It was promptly turned over to the codebreakers at Bletchley Park."

"His most important work was on Operation Fortitude. He helped convince Nazi high command that the invasion of Normandy was a diversion—officers believed a larger army was due to land in Calais."

"For his 'efforts' he was awarded the Iron Cross, authorized by Hitler himself. Understandably, the medal was awarded via radio."

"He was then also given an MBE medal by the British king, making him one of two people known to have received such prestigious medals from both sides."

"He faked his death and fled to Venezuela after the war, where he then ran a bookshop. His secret identity was undiscovered until a journalist got interested in the story, and managed to track him down in 1984."

"He managed to finagle the real name of 'Garbo' from a former spy and then found Garcia after literally calling every 'J. Garcia' in the Barcalona phonebook until he managed to get in contact with Garcia's nephew."

"The whole story is just so incredibly goofy. It's a prime example of 'wait, that worked?'."

- Smallwater

Eiffel Tower for Sale!

"The con man who sold the Eiffel Tower twice and got away with it."

- drunk_haile_selassie

"You left out the part where the same guy later conned Al Capone out of $5000. Between the Eiffel Tower, the Rumanian box, and conning one of the biggest gangsters in American history, Victor Lustig is a freaking legend."

- bard-security

Guess He Showed Them...

"When Persian king Xerxes punished the sea for ruining his bridge."

"He tried to build a bridge across the Dardanelles to get to Greece faster but a storm destroyed the bridge."

"'Infuriated with the sea, Xerxes ordered his soldiers to punish it by whipping it with chains 300 times and poking it with red-hot irons. Handcuffs were also tossed into the water to symbolize the sea’s submission to his authority'."

- _Norman_Bates

"Literal embodiment of 'old man yells at clouds' energy."

- Excellent_Routine589

Oops!

"In 1945 the Americans were pushing through Germany."

"General Eisenhower sent General Patton a message, instructing him not to take the city of Trier because it would require 4 divisions to seize the city."

"Patton sent a message back saying 'Have taken Trier with two divisions… what do you want me to do, give it back?'"

- SayNoToStim

R.I.P. Thag

"In 1982 cartoonist Gary Larson drew a cartoon of a caveman giving a classroom lecture, pointing to the spikes of a stegasaurus dinosaur tail and calling that the thagomizer 'after the late Thag Simmons'."

"That particular arrangement of tail spikes had no name at the time, so scientists who were fans of Larson unofficially named it the thagomizer."

- doublestitch

He Followed Us Home, Can We Keep Him?

"In 1866 when going to war, Liechtenstein's army of 80 men came back with 81 men after making a friend from the enemy's side."

- DavosLostFingers

Not Dinner!

"The Kettle War."

"It was the 8th of october 1784."

"The Dutch kingdom and then Holy Roman Empire had a short naval battle and the only casulty was a kettle full of soup that got hit by a cannonball and that was the only shot that was fired."

- AlwaysHappy4Kitties

Apparently Bugs Was a Republican

"President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit while paddling around in a rowboat."

"The President was minding his own business rowing around a small pond and fishing when a rabbit left the shore and swam deliberately towards the boat, apparently crazed."

"Carter splashed the rabbit with water, driving it away from the boat."

"According to Press Secretary Jody Powell:"

“'Upon closer inspection, the animal turned out to be a rabbit. Not one of your cutesy, Easter Bunny-type rabbits, but one of those big splay-footed things that we called swamp rabbits when I was growing up'."

"The animal was clearly in distress, or perhaps berserk."

"The President confessed to having had limited experience with enraged rabbits."

"He was unable to reach a definite conclusion about its state of mind."

"What was obvious, however, was that this large, wet animal, making strange hissing noises and gnashing its teeth, was intent upon climbing into the Presidential boat.”

"Staff back on shore initially didn’t believe the president’s account, but a photographer managed to capture the moment."

"Carter’s political enemies used the incident as fodder to show that he was weak and claimed that his response to the rabbit attack incited the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan that same year."

- bookem_danno

While these events are funny in hindsight, one has to wonder if people saw the humor in the moment.

Hopefully we're laughing with them and not just at them.