What's your favorite "History is Stranger than Fiction" moment from world history?

[FatAndFaithless]

What's your favorite historical event that is so strange that most people would think you were making it up?


Mine would have to be the time Liechtenstein sent off its 80 man army in 1866 to fight in the Austro-Prussan War.  Zero casualties were suffered, and the army returned with 81 men after making a friend from Italy who would rather live in Liechtenstein.

[Anomalocaris]

No one questioned the assertion that Sarah palin was born in the US despite the caliber of her English?

[Gawdzilla]

http://ibiblio.org/pha/pha/misc/surprise.html

[vorlon13]

One of the French kings suggested an improvement to the blade design of the guillotine.


Subsequently, he was able to evaluate the change . . .


on his own neck.

[Jello]

The time America managed to crash a nuclear bomb into a field (In the USA, too!) at something like 700mph.

[Rev. Rye]

Well, here's one example that springs to mind:

Dennis Rader, also known as BTK, stalked Kansas for almost three decades. He probably wouldn't have been caught if he had not A) Asked the authorities if forensics could track him down, and B) Believing what they said, gave the police a floppy disc with metadata that fingered him. But this isn't the unbelievable part:

During his trial, his pastor stood by him until he got to explain his views on the afterlife: that he expected his victims (all 10 of them) to be his slaves in the afterlife. Said pastor walked out of the trial, and, having formerly been a member of Rader's Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, I am very prepared to believe that the reason was far less related to the disgust most people would feel and more to the fact that his view of the afterlife is closer to Egyptian mythology than Christianity.

Also, Gary Heidnik (one of the models for Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs), contended his innocence to his dying day. When he was arrested with some women (his future victims) chained in the basement, he insisted they came with the house.

Of course, if we're talking about world history, the War of Jenkin's Ear takes the cake; England went to war with Spain because one sailor got his ear cut off. And, insanely, the ear may not have even been actually cut off at all.

[Eclipse]

On July 21 , 1861, the first major battle of the American Civil war began with the battle of Bull Run, in Manassas, Virginia.

Confederate General, P.T Beauregard, commandeered a farm house from a Manassas local to use a his headquarters. The next day the owners of the farmhouse left and narrowly escaped a Union shell landing in their kitchen. On their return, they found their house damaged and over-run with Confederate casualties so they decided to flee the war and move to quieter surroundings.

On April 9, 1865, a Confederate general rode in to the small town of  Appotomax Court House, and asked the first person he could find to assist him in locating a suitable building to host General Robert E Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S Grant. After rejecting the first house offered, the person helping the General volunteered their own house. After the surrender had been signed, Union officers ransacked the house and took virtually all they could carry as souvenirs of that historic day.

The name of the person who's property hosted the first major battle of the civil war and who's house was commandeered by Confederate forces?  Mr Wilmer McLean.    

The name of the person who's house hosted the signing of the Confederate surrender and was ransacked by Union officers? The very same Mr Wilmer McLean.

[brewer]

J Gutenberg and his one big mistake.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The Irish invasions of Canada. That's right: 'invasions', plural.

In a display of strategy so appallingly ill-conceived that it wobbles the mind, the Fenian Brotherhood in the US manage to convince itself that attacking Canada would pressure the British to withdraw from Ireland (this is the point at which you say 'huh?'). From 1866 to 1871, five different attempts to conquer BritCan soil were mounted.

-In the first, at Campobello Island, a force of 700 Fenian toughs dispersed at the sight of the British force.

-The next debacle was actually two battles (Ridgeway and Fort Erie) in which the Fenians did better than expected, but still lost on points. Total casualties (both sides, out of combined forces of around 2000) less than 30 killed, about 100 wounded.

-Continuing the fun, a force of 1000 Fenians occupied tiny village of Pigeon Hill, and surrendered the next day.

-Then there was the 'Battle' of Eccles Hill. 600 Fenians and their single cannon were attacked by a (very) slightly larger force of Canadian militia. Five Fenians were killed and their cannon was captured. No Canadians killed or wounded.

-The Pembina Raid hardly counts, but is generally included in the list because of stunning ineptitude. A band of 35 Fenians captured a Canadian customs house. Trouble was, the customs house was actually a couple of miles south of the border, and thus part of the US. All of the Fenians were arrested and released - apparently - because the US officials felt sorry for them.

Amazingly, none of the above efforts achieved fuck all in the fight for an independent Ireland.

Boru

[vorlon13]

Einstein's letter to FDR on starting development of nukes sat on FDR's desk for several (many?) days and was finally acted upon December 6, 1941.


What, if anything, might have become of that letter had it sat one more day and then was engulfed in the tempest of the Pearl Harbor attack ?