19 Surreal Historical Events That Actually Happened
Carly Tennes
Published
04/19/2024
in
wow
Though it may often be confined to textbooks and the pages of old newspapers, sometimes historical events can be stranger than fiction. For instance, did you know that the U.S. military allegedly staged several vampire attacks throughout Asia? Or that a circus once launched a massive riot in Toronto?
From a massive molasses flood to the Dave Matthews Band now-infamous Chicago River ordeal, here are 19 of the most surreal historical events to have ever happened.
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1. The Christmas Truce of 1914
"The Christmas Truce of 1914, in which soldiers came across the battle lines to sing and play football against each other. Or, more precisely, the way soldiers on both sides went back to fighting when Christmas was over." -
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3. The Great Molasses Flood
“The Great Molasses Flood in Boston in 1919. An enormous storage tank of molasses burst. 21 people were killed and 150 were injured.” -
4. The Napoleonic Wars
“Napoleon landing with 1000 men in France and taking back control of the country in 3 weeks without a shot being fired” -
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6. The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand And The Start of World War I
The escalation of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand from a manageable sitiuation to world War 1. I'm sure everyone in the region was unable to process it. -
7. The September 11 2001 Attacks
“9/11 was pretty f—ing weird to watch. Literally watching the twin towers, all 130(?) floors of each, come down, was literally a surreal moment. I'll never forget it Covid was a really strange time, but 9/11 was FAR more intense.” -
8. The United States Staging Faux Vampire Attacks In The Philippines and Vietnam
“There were some Philippine rebels who needed getting rid of and the CIA discovered local folk lore about vampires so they started grabbing rebels at night, draining their blood and leaving them out to be found, wether you believed in vampires or not it would still be scary They also did a similar thing in Vietnam where they blasted ghostly music and voices to scare the enemy” -
9. The Night The Stars Fell
‘The Night the Stars Fell, 1833. A meteor shower so intense fell over the southern United States that people thought the world was ending. Slave owners reportedly repented at the feet of their slaves, begging forgiveness for enslaving them. And then the next day, I suppose, went right back to normal. But the even was so memorable that it was used as a touchstone moment that slaves could use to estimate their age for decades. Up until the 1920, people could say “I musta been 8 years old the night the stars fell,” and thus historians could approximate their birth year.” -
10. The Dave Matthews Band Chicago River Incident.
On August 8, 2004, roughly 800 pounds of sewage and human waste were dumped into the Chicago River by a Dave Matthews Band tour bus. The sewage fell through the grate of the Kinzie Street Bridge in Chicago, Illinois, hitting the top of an open-top architecture tour boat that happened to be passing underneath the bridge at that exact moment. -
11. Juan Pujol García’s Work As A Double Agent
“WWII spy who won both the German Iron Cross and Order of the British Empire for spying. He initially approached British Intelligence and offered his services, and was refused. Undeterred, he created the persona of a loyal N—i supporter, became a German agent, gathered a payroll of fake sub-agents (all bankrolled by Germany), persuaded the German Navy to chase a fake convoy, then finally got recruited by the Allies. He finally fed misleading info to the Axis about the D-Day landings, causing them to deploy forces to the wrong locations, even after the invasion had begun.” -
12. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson Dying On The Same Day
“John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the same day. The day? The 50th anniversary of the Fourth of July. Adams’s last words were, “Thomas Jefferson still survives”. -
13. The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855.
“The Fire Department and some clowns get into a disagreement at a whorehouse, and get into a punch-up. The clowns win, but the firemen return to the circus later and start attacking in revenge. The firemen win the day but violence is stopped when the militia come in. The police do nothing, so the city fires all the police (and I mean everyone) and starts a new police force.” -
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15. World War II’s Final Prisoner Of War
“The last prisoner of war from WWII returned home in 2000, nearly sixty years after the fighting ended.” -
16. Wojtek The Bear Soldier
“Wojtek, the soldier bear! He served in the Polish army in WWII, helping his fellow soldiers by carrying heavy creates of ammunition into battle, saving precious time during combat. He had been recruited as a soldier when his division had to board an English ship which didn't allow animals on board. Outraged, the Polish then made him a soldier and he lived through the war to die of old age in a zoo in 1963.” -
17. Human Evolution
“A bunch of weak a— apes becoming the most dominant species on Earth. “ -
18. The Four Seasons Total Landscaping Press Conference
On November 7 2020, then-president Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, hosted a press conference outside of Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania four days after the 2020 Presidential election. While it’s largely believed that the Trump Campaign meant to hold the press conference at the nearby Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, they decided to stay at the landscaping company, one located next to an adult store and a crematorium. -
19. Operation Acoustic Kitty
“Operation Acoustic Kitty. In the 60’s the CIA spent months and tens of millions of dollars to surgically bug and then train a cat to sit near foreign officials in order to transmit their private conversations to CIA operatives. The day of the first official test run they release the cat, it wanders into the street and is promptly hit by a taxi.” -
20. The Cadaver Synod
“My personal favorite: The Cadaver Synod in which the dead body of a former pope was disinterred, propped up on the throne, and then formally tried by The Church to have his papacy retroactively annulled. Predictably, he was found guilty. Then they chucked his corpse in the Tiber.People are funny animals.” -
21. The Battle Of The Eclipse
"The Battle of the Eclipse, also known as the Battle of Halys, it took place in the early 6th century BC in Anatolia (present-day Turkey). It involved the Medes and the Lydians. The sudden darkness led both parties to halt the fighting and negotiate a peace agreement, ending a six-year war." -
22. Robert Liston’s 300% Mortality Rate Surgery
“The surgeon [Robert Liston] performed a surgery that had a 300% mortality rate. he was performing a surgery in 1851, wherein he was removing a patients leg. as he was cutting, he sliced the fingers off one of his assistants, and the assistant and patient both later died of gangrene, as well as one of the spectators in the surgical theater dying of fright.”
- REPLAY GALLERY
- 19 Surreal Historical Events That Actually Happened
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