History is full of events that sound like they were invented by a particularly creative fiction writer but are completely, documentedly real. The stories below have all been verified by multiple historical sources, and every single one of them sounds like a lie. They are not.
Australia Declared War on Emus in 1932 and the Emus Won
In 1932, the Australian government deployed soldiers from the Royal Australian Artillery to the Campion district of Western Australia to cull a population of approximately 20,000 emus that were destroying wheat crops. The soldiers were armed with two Lewis guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. They expected a quick operation.
What followed was a series of embarrassing failures. The emus scattered into small groups that were nearly impossible to target effectively. They ran at speeds exceeding 30 miles per hour and demonstrated what one commander described as guerrilla-like tactics. After using 9,860 rounds of ammunition and killing fewer than 1,000 emus out of 20,000, the operation was withdrawn. The Australian House of Representatives debated the failure, and the emus continued to eat wheat. The military never attempted another emu engagement.
The London Beer Flood Killed Eight People in 1814
On October 17, 1814, a massive vat of beer at the Meux and Company Brewery in the St. Giles neighborhood of London ruptured, triggering a chain reaction that released approximately 1.47 million liters (388,000 gallons) of beer into the surrounding streets. The resulting flood destroyed two homes, demolished a pub wall, and killed eight people, most of whom were impoverished residents of the basement dwellings common in the neighborhood.
The brewery was taken to court, but the disaster was ruled an ‘Act of God,’ and no one was found liable. The victims were all from one of London’s poorest neighborhoods, and the incident received relatively little attention from the press compared to other disasters of the era. A wall of beer killing people in one of the world’s great cities sounds like a Monty Python sketch, but it was a genuine tragedy caused by industrial negligence.
Did Pepsi Really Have the Sixth Largest Navy in the World?
In 1989, the Soviet Union, which had a persistent shortage of hard currency, struck a deal with PepsiCo that involved trading 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer for Pepsi products. For a brief period, this technically gave PepsiCo the sixth-largest navy in the world by vessel count. The company promptly sold the vessels to a Swedish scrap dealer.
The arrangement arose because the Soviet Union could not easily pay for Pepsi in dollars, having previously traded vodka (Stolichnaya) for Pepsi syrup. When the vodka deal became insufficient, military hardware was apparently the next logical medium of exchange. PepsiCo’s CEO reportedly joked to Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Advisor, that they were ‘disarming the Soviet Union faster than you are.’
400 People Danced Uncontrollably for Days in 1518 and Some Died
In July 1518, a woman known as Frau Troffea stepped into a narrow street in Strasbourg, Alsace (then part of the Holy Roman Empire), and began dancing. She did not stop. Within a week, 34 others had joined her. Within a month, approximately 400 people were dancing involuntarily in the streets, many until they collapsed from exhaustion, strokes, or heart attacks.
The Dancing Plague of 1518 is one of the most thoroughly documented cases of mass psychogenic illness in history. Strasbourg’s city council records, physician notes, and sermons from the period all confirm the event. Authorities initially encouraged the dancing by building a stage and hiring musicians, believing the afflicted needed to dance it out. This made it worse. Modern theories attribute the event to mass hysteria triggered by severe famine and disease-related stress in the region.
Liechtenstein Sent 80 Soldiers to War and Came Back With 81
During the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the tiny principality of Liechtenstein sent 80 soldiers to guard the Brenner Pass in the Alps. They saw no combat. When they returned home, they had 81 men, having made a friend along the way, an Austrian liaison officer who had apparently decided to join them rather than return to his own unit.
Liechtenstein disbanded its military entirely in 1868, partly because it could not afford one and partly because the 1866 deployment, its last military action, demonstrated that the country’s armed forces were more of a social club than a fighting force. The story of returning with an extra person has become a beloved piece of Liechtenstein national folklore.
The Great Molasses Flood and Other Historical Absurdities
On January 15, 1919, a massive storage tank in Boston’s North End burst, releasing 2.3 million gallons of molasses in a wave that moved at approximately 35 miles per hour. The flood killed 21 people, injured 150 others, and created a sticky mess that took weeks to clean up. Residents reported that the neighborhood smelled of molasses on hot days for decades afterward.
Meanwhile, Pope Gregory IX issued a papal decree around 1233 associating cats with devil worship, which led to widespread cat killings across Europe. Some historians argue this reduced the cat population enough to allow rat populations to explode, potentially worsening the Black Plague a century later. And for perspective on how old things actually are: Oxford University (established circa 1096) is older than the Aztec Empire (founded 1428), and the fax machine was invented in 1843, the same year the Oregon Trail migration began. History is far stranger than anyone gives it credit for.
Which of these historical facts surprised you the most? Tell us in the comments!