History Lovers Share 50 Fascinating Anecdotes Mixing Humor, Tragedy And The Unexpected

Her family were traditional healers and Karuhimbi was believed to have magical powers. During the genocide she sheltered more than 100 people in her two room house. To maintain her reputation she painted herself and her house with herbs that would irritate the skin of whoever touched them. She threatened that anyone who entered her house to k**l the refugees would unleash the wrath of God upon themselves.

His captors called him “The Stupid,” but his mind was a fortress. The incredible story of Douglas Hegdahl, a young U.S. Navy sailor captured during the Vietnam War, is a powerful example of how ingenuity and an exceptional memory can become weapons in the face of impossible odds. After being blown overboard from his ship and taken prisoner in 1967, Hegdahl quickly realized that his low rank and youthful appearance gave him an opportunity. He began to feign illiteracy and a simple-minded demeanor, an act so convincing that his North Vietnamese captors deemed him a low-value prisoner.
This perception of his incompetence was a brilliant ruse. While others were subjected to brutal interrogations and t*****e, Hegdahl was given more freedom to move around the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison camp. He used this liberty not to escape, but to gather vital intelligence. With the help of a fellow POW, he developed a system to memorize the names, capture dates, and other personal details of over 250 American prisoners. He committed all of this information to memory by singing it to the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." He also carried out small acts of sabotage, such as putting dirt in the gas tanks of prison trucks.
When he was unexpectedly released in 1969 as a propaganda gesture, Hegdahl was initially reluctant to go, worried that his early release would be seen as a betrayal. However, senior POWs ordered him to accept the offer, recognizing the immense value of the information he carried. Upon his return, Hegdahl's detailed testimony helped the U.S. government confirm the identities of numerous prisoners previously listed as missing in action, expose the appalling conditions in the camp, and gave families of the missing desperately needed hope. His remarkable courage and cleverness turned a devastating situation into a stunning victory of human spirit and intelligence.

During the American Revolution, an enslaved man named Billy was charged with treason and sentenced to hang. Cleverly, he argued that since he was legally considered property, he was not a citizen and could not commit treason against a government to which he owed no allegiance. Billy was subsequently pardoned.

The best farming land was reserved for whites, so she was given a barren plot. Oil was discovered there, and she became one of the country's first black millionaires.

She saw him in a local bar, poured gasoline on him and set him on fire. He died. She was sentenced to 9.5 years in prison.

Triboulet, a notorious jester for Louis XII and Francis I once slapped the king on the b**t, which greatly angered him, but then was given a chance to be forgiven if he could think of something more clever. He said "I'm so sorry I mistook you for the Queen!" When he was sentenced to death for making fun of people, he was allowed to choose how he would die. So he chose to die of old age. ...
The speechless King let him go.

When the 13-year-old tried to return to school in Kokomo, Indiana, hundreds of parents and teachers petitioned to have him removed, and his family was forced to leave town after a bullet was fired at their house

"People would get up and leave so they would not have to sit anywhere near me. Even at church, people would not shake my hand." Ryan White was just 13 years old when he was diagnosed with AIDS. A hemophiliac since birth, the Indiana teen contracted HIV through a tainted blood transfusion — yet he was bullied and ostracized by his peers and the community at large for having the "gay disease." But the brave teenager persevered and helped change the negative stigma around the disease before dying at age 18.

His experiments were elaborate farces intended to protect inmates. He was the only person acquitted of war crimes at the 1947 Auschwitz trials after many inmates testified in his favour.

Thinking quickly, the women carried the men on their backs. The King kept his word and let the men live.

For Example, Ida pinned a large diamond brooch to her cheap sweater and officials assumed it was fake. They repeated this trick several times.

Both girls were born in Sunderland, Louise in 1901, Ida in 1904. By 1934 both girls, now considered spinsters, were living together in London and working civil service jobs although Ida would soon be a successful romance author under the pen name Mary Burchell (her first book was published in 1936). Ida and Louise both had a passion for opera and frequently traveled so they could see their favorite operas. That year Ida and Louise were both in Salzburg attending an opera festival. They became acquainted with a Romanian opera singer named Viorica Ursuleac and her Austrian husband, a conductor named Clemens Krauss who were both secretly involved in helping Jews escape from the N***s. The sisters were told about the plight of Jews in Austria and Germany and what they heard moved them so much that they knew they needed to act. Back in Britain the sisters contributed their own money and later donations from friends to help resettle Jews in Britain. Later they agreed to covertly transport expensive jewelry owned by Jews out of occupied territory. This was illegal as Jews weren't allowed to take any valuable items out of the country so Ida and Louise took a big risk doing this. That's when Ida had to transport the large diamond brooch and got the idea to pin it to the front of her cheap cardigan from Marks and Spencer's. It worked so well that Ida and Louise repeated the ruse several more times. On the rare occasions when they were stopped by officials they would “do the nervous British spinster act” and act so crazy that any official would back off. As an example I'll quote this anecdote from the article "When an Austrian frontier official questioned Louise’s opulent string of pearls that she was wearing along with her otherwise inexpensive outfit, she acted affronted, exclaiming, “And why not?!’ She frantically ran to a mirror and looked at herself, all the while yelling at the inspector, “What is wrong with my appearance? What were you trying to imply?” until the inspector fled Louise’s crazy act." For their heroism they were awarded "Righteous Among the Nations" from Yad Vashem in 1965.

Colonel Gail Halvorsen, a US air force officer who was known as the "Berlin Candy Bomber" or "Uncle Wiggly Wings" because he airdropped candy to German children during the Berlin Airlift from 1948 to 1949. He would wiggle his wings to let them know he was coming.

He lived entirely off his excess body fat and vitamins, ultimately losing 276 pounds with seemingly no adverse effects. He only pooped once every 40 to 50 days.

In the mid-1960s, a 456-pound man named Angus Barbieri went without food for 382 days straight in a medically supervised diet designed to help him lose weight. In addition to drinking black coffee, tea, and sparkling water, he was prescribed multivitamins — including potassium, sodium, and yeast — to compensate for the lack of nutrients. Shockingly, Barbieri not only survived the diet but was able to achieve his ideal weight. By the end of his fast, he had lost 276 pounds, reaching his goal weight of 180 pounds, and he managed to keep most of the weight off afterward. And at the time of Barbieri's death in 1990, he had only gained back 16 pounds.

A Hungarian doctor's brilliant insight saved thousands of mothers in childbirth, but the scientific community rejected it and discredited his irrefutable results; he went mad, and women resumed dying.

Ignác Semmelweis, a 19th-century Hungarian doctor, discovered that handwashing drastically reduced maternal deaths from puerperal fever. Despite clear results, his ideas were rejected by the medical community, leading to his dismissal, mental breakdown, and early death—ironically from the very infection he sought to prevent.

In the early 1920's, when notorious Russian anticommunist general Roman von Ungern-Sternberg learned one of his lieutenants had sexually a*******d several nurses & looted their communities during one of his military campaigns, he ordered the man severely flogged & burned at the stake

Londinium burned with such ferocity that a blackened scorch-layer still runs under modern London, named by archaeologists the 'Boudican Destruction Horizon'

Personnel covered the ship in foliage and painted the hull to resemble rocks. The ship remained close to shore during the day and only sailed at night.

The 14 ships were caught in the ice at Helder, and the French general attempted this bold move. It is the only documented occurence of a cavalry charge against ships in History.

In 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima, sought refuge in an air raid shelter overnight, and then took a morning train to Nagasaki to report for work—where he endured and survived a second atomic blast.

Patton immediately brandished a pistol & ordered her let out at gunpoint, learning only moments later she was leaving her own wedding, & was exhausted from dancing

During a concert, he accidentally broke a string; he replaced and tuned it using only his toes. Afterwards, he deliberately weakened a string before each performance so that he could repeat the stunt.

On April 18, 1930, at 8:45 pm the BBC News evening bulletin announced: "Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news." For the rest of the 15 minute time slot, the station played only piano music.

Some of the 4,000 who died in the 5 days it lasted didn't suffer lung problems – they fell into the Thames and drowned because they could not see the river

At 23, he went to Philadelphia to be inoculated for smallpox when Virginia discouraged it. He later vaccinated 200 family members & neighbors. This 1806 letter gives praise to Dr. Edward Jenner.

In 1978, Scottish journalist Malcolm Caldwell (right), an ardent defender of the Khmer Rouge, traveled to Cambodia for an audience with communist dictator Pol Pot, (not pictured) of whom he was an admirer. Caldwell was found m******d only a few hours after their meeting

If you ask what the worst year in human history is, there are a number of possible answers. Some might respond that 2020 was the worst year in human history, a time when life came to a literal halt. Nearly 6.9 million people died due to COVID-19. And if you’re a bit familiar with history, your answer might be that the worst year was 1918, the year World War I ended, after claiming the lives of around 20 million people. In addition, the Spanish flu swept the globe, k*****g between 50 to 100 million people. But did you know that there's something even worse? A year that is described as the worst in recorded history... The Mysterious Fog: In the year 536 AD, the year began with a mysterious thick fog that covered vast parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It completely blocked out the sun. Procopius described the sun at that time: “It seemed as though the sun had lost its light, and it no longer shone with the brilliance of day, but rather as the moon, without rays or warmth, for more than a year.” The Roman statesman Cassiodorus also wrote: “The sunlight was weak, the sky appeared colorless, the cold pierced to the bone, and it was as if summer had been defeated by winter.” Catastrophic Climate Change: Temperatures dropped by 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius in some regions, causing the worst cold spell the Northern Hemisphere had experienced in the past two thousand years. Widespread Famines: The climate shift led to the failure of harvests across Europe and Asia, resulting in massive famines, particularly in places like Ireland, Syria, and Byzantium. The Spread of Plagues: After this climate catastrophe and the ensuing famines, rats emerged from their hiding places in search of food, increasing their contact with humans. The fleas on these rats, which feed on blood, began infecting humans. Due to the general decline in public health and malnutrition, the world was struck by the Plague of Justinian, or the “Black Plague,” in the year 541 AD—just five years later. This pandemic k****d between 30 to 50 million people, nearly half of the population of the Byzantine Empire. The economy and military were weakened, trade came to a standstill, and this accelerated Europe’s descent into what became known as the Dark Ages. "The Triumph of Death is a painting by the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, created in 1562."

When a doctor was later amputating his fingers he got impatient and pulled them off. - he later said "Frankly I enjoyed the war"

Convicted of m*******g her white employer at age 16. Sentenced to death despite no previous arrests and her claims of self-defense. Executed the day after her 17th birthday.

In John Aubrey's Brief Lives, it is the story of the Earl of Oxford, who bowed deeply to the first Queen Elizabeth and accidentally farted. Overcome with shame, he vanished from court and spent seven years travelling. On his hesitant return, the queen greeted him with: "My Lord, I had forgotten the Fart."

She suffered severe burns, and a broken pelvis, back and neck. It remains the world record for the longest survived elevator fall.

Nasal Insufflation k****d 1 - 2% of recipients which was still preferable to smallpox. This method was brought to Europe in the late 17th century before being banned in the 1800's

After being captured, he was identified as Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese WW2 soldier who had hid in the jungle for almost 30 years. When he landed back in Japan, he wept "I am ashamed that I have returned alive"

When Shoichi Yokoi was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941, he and his fellow soldiers were taught "to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive." So when American forces invaded Guam in 1944, Yokoi fled into the jungle to avoid becoming a prisoner of war. But although he saw the pamphlets dropped above the country announcing that World War 2 had come to an end a year later, he still refused to surrender. Instead, Yokoi spent the next 27 years living in an underground shelter he dug for himself, weaving clothing out of tree bark, and eating coconuts, frogs, eels, and rats. Then, in 1972, two hunters discovered him and turned him in to the authorities, who sent him back to Japan. Even nearly three decades after the war, Yokoi was ashamed that he'd been captured, telling the crowd gathered to greet him: "I have returned with the rifle the emperor gave me. I am sorry I could not serve him to my satisfaction." At the age of 56, Yokoi initially had trouble assimilating back into Japanese society, but he ultimately got married just nine months after returning home — and spent his honeymoon back in Guam.

He sold the song rights for 10 shillings (less than $2), and he died virtually penniless, with his estate not seeing any royalties for decades.

On Day 12, a girl taunted him by waving an eclair in front of him, causing him to go insane and smash his way out.

Jackson refused, seeking out the help of a Cherokee medicine man who successfully treated his arm. Decades later Jackson ruthlessly ethnically cleansed the Cherokee

Germany's final emperor was so moved that he fully funded the restoration of his mausoleum, personally donating a marble sarcophagus in his honor.

Stalin & Genden had fallen out over Stalin's insistence on eradicating Buddhism from Mongolia, with Genden once remarking "On earth there are two great geniuses, Buddha & Lenin"

The film starred Dorothy Gibson, an actress who had survived the sinking. To add to the film's authenticity, she wore the same clothes that she had worn on the night of the disaster.

When his son Uday was only 11 years old, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein took him to witness enemies of the Ba'ath being tortured. Such experiences supposedly had a profound effect on young Uday, who grew up to the one of the most ruthless, feared men of Saddam's government

Known as the "Hyena of Auschwitz" and later as the "Witch of Bergen-Belsen," Grese's reputation was marked by extreme cruelty and sadistic behavior.

According to Chares of Mytilene, 35 people died before midnight, and a further 6 from various complications in the days that followed.

Despite this, Truman was not known for being an alcoholic, and did not drink to excess throughout the day

How a climate event led to the Dark Ages

The vast geographic impact of the fog

Its link to famines and plagues

That this year is considered worst in history