People can’t believe these 19 bizarre historical events actually took place
A Redditor named u/day-tripper96 asked
“What’s a bizzare historical event you can’t believe actually took place?”
Spelling of bizarre aside, it’s a good question, which prompted a lot of excellent answers. Although we can’t guarantee they’re all accurate because it’s r/AskReddit, not The History Channel.
Be warned, there are injuries and deaths galore.
1. The Cobra Effect
Basically during the British rule of India, they were concerned about the number of snakes in the capital, so they ordered a bounty on Cobras. For a while their population definitely declined, but soon people started breeding snakes just to collect the bounty. When the British became aware of this, they cancelled the bounty and so the breeders/snake catchers had huge numbers of now-worthless snakes which they let go in the wild, in turn actually increasing the population of Cobras in Delhi
vpsj
2. The Dancing Plague
In 1518 in the city of Strasbourg, hundreds of citizens over a two month period became overwhelmed with the uncontrollable need to dance. In fact, they couldn’t stop dancing, so much so to the point that they literally died. That’s right, hundreds of people in the year 1518 danced themselves to death against their own will for absolutely no explainable reason.
DethBySnuSnu92
3. When Teddy Roosevelt was shot before he was supposed to give a speech
The bullet was slowed down by the folded up 50-page speech, so it did not kill him. The bullet was inside him and he was bleeding, but he still went on and gave the speech, which was 84 minutes long.
He started it off with “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose” and showed the crowd the speech with the hole in it.
-eDgAR-
4. Weird cookery
Edison fried an elephant in the street to prove something about electricity…
Hookerlike3
5. The Erfurt Latrine Disaster of 1184
A bunch of nobles met in a church, where it turned out the wooden floor couldn’t hold their weight, so it broke and they tumbled into the latrine in the cellar, and about 60 people drowned in poop.
Rasmoss
6. The pandemic
Gestures vaguely at everything since March 13, 2020.
GeekyAine
Via
7. Alexander Hamilton!
The fact that the Vice President straight up murdered a cabinet member. and now there’s a musical about it! fucking insane.
badbitchfunkywitch
Via
8. The Battle of Pelusium
The persians straight up attached cats to their shields so the egyptians couldn’t attack the shields or fire arrows at them.
Jormungandr181
9. NSFW politics
The Tea Party political movement in the US called themselves the “Teabaggers” at first until someone explained to them what teabagging is.
PMMeUrHopesNDreams
10. The Great Boston Molasses Flood, Jan.15, 1919.
Imagine walking the streets, minding your own business, when suddenly you hear a rumbling and a 25ft. high wave of molasses traveling at 35mph comes around the corner and starts knocking down streetcars and tearing the walls off buildings.
Traxathon
