20 Interesting Historical Facts You Won’t Find in Textbooks

In late 1932, Western Australia deployed soldiers to cull the emus that were destroying crops. The campaign lasted several weeks, but the number of animals killed was far lower than expected, which became a subject of ridicule nationwide. It is remembered today precisely because the results were so disappointing for a military operation.

In the 1850s, the U.S. Army imported camels to test whether they performed better than horses and mules in arid terrain. Reports indicated that camels tolerated heat and water scarcity well, but the project lost momentum as the Civil War approached. Many of the animals were eventually sold, and a few became the stuff of local legend for decades.

Camp Century was a fully-fledged underground facility carved out of the Greenland ice sheet, powered for a time by a portable nuclear reactor. Officially, it was a research and engineering demonstration, while a related classified concept (Project Iceworm) explored the possibility of hiding missiles in ice tunnels. Shifting ice made the project unfeasible, and the site was abandoned.

“Acoustic Kitty” was a real CIA project aimed at determining whether a cat could be used to carry eavesdropping equipment. The idea ran into obvious practical problems, including the fundamental issue of controlling a cat’s behavior outdoors. Even within the history of the CIA, this project is often cited as an example of ambitious concepts colliding with reality.

The workers at Deir el-Medina, who were building the royal tombs, went on strike near the temple of Thutmose III when their rations were delayed. The event was recorded by a scribe and preserved in what is often called the “Strike Papyrus.” The workers reportedly shouted, “We are hungry!” when they did not receive their wages 18 days after the scheduled date.

On October 17, 1814, a massive vat of dark beer burst at the Horse Shoe Brewery, sending a tsunami of beer flooding through the streets and into nearby buildings. The incident claimed the lives of at least eight people; the brewery faced enormous financial consequences, and this unfortunate event subsequently became part of London’s quirky urban history.

In the early morning hours of February 25, 1942, a few months after Pearl Harbor, air raid sirens, searchlights, and anti-aircraft fire lit up the city during a major false alarm. The authorities later attributed the chaos to war-related anxiety and a case of mistaken identity, as no enemy aircraft had been confirmed in the sky.

The Black Tom explosion in New York Harbor, carried out by German agents during World War I, damaged the Statue of Liberty. Access to the torch was subsequently closed and has never been reopened to the public. If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t go up there, that’s the reason.

A message on a clay tablet addressed to a merchant named Ea-nāṣir is considered the oldest written complaint and resembles a frustrated customer service message you might see today. It is recognized by Guinness World Records, and the British Museum has held this tablet in its collections since the 1950s.

The “Synod of the Corpses” involved exhuming Pope Formosus and staging a mock trial in which his body—which had been dead for nine months—was brought before the court. A deacon answered on behalf of the corpse while the charges were read, and the pope was subsequently found guilty and thrown into the Tiber.

In St. Louis, the 1904 marathon took place in sweltering heat, with questionable organization and even more questionable decisions. The eventual winner, Thomas Hicks, was given substances such as strychnine (considered a stimulant at the time, but now known as a poison used to kill rats) and brandy by his support team, and officials at the time still allowed a large support crew. Modern accounts consider this event one of the strangest in Olympic history—and for good reason.

American computer scientists had long referred to program errors as “bugs,” but in 1947, engineers working on Harvard’s Mark II found a moth stuck in one of the machine’s components. They pasted it into their logbook and noted it as “the first actual case of a bug found.”

On August 27, 1896, the British Empire fought Zanzibar in a conflict that ended in less than an hour. The British naval bombardment quickly decided the outcome of the conflict after a disputed succession had triggered the intervention. This conflict is widely considered the shortest war in history.

The “Year Without a Summer” was the result of the massive eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. The ash and aerosols in the atmosphere blocked out the sun, altering temperatures and the climate and leading to crop failures, storms, and cold rains. Scientists still use it today as a clear historical example of the dramatic effects that volcanic eruptions can have.

The Vasa was launched with great ambitions and considerable firepower, but then capsized and sank on August 10, 1628, shortly after setting sail. Modern explanations attribute this accident to instability issues related to the ship’s design and weight distribution; indeed, the Vasa was far too heavy in its upper structure. However, it remains to this day one of the best-preserved 17th-century ships in the world.

Diamond Rock, off the coast of Martinique, was used as a “stone frigate” during the Napoleonic Wars. Great Britain fortified it and used it to disrupt enemy movements in the nearby strait. This story is unusual, as naval tradition typically involves wood and sails, not geology.

On January 15, 1919, a storage tank burst, spilling sugarcane syrup into Boston’s North End neighborhood. Built in 1915, it had begun to leak over time, but no preventive measures had been taken despite warnings. Newspapers at the time reported at least 50 injuries and 11 deaths.

In 1918, a 24-cent postage stamp was printed with the image of the Curtiss Jenny airplane upside down. It is known that only one sheet of 100 stamps was sold, which explains why collectors are so fond of it. It is best known as the “Inverted Jenny.”

In Leicester, archaeologists discovered human remains in 2012 beneath a parking lot on the former site of the Grey Friars, long associated with the burial place of King Richard III. Even more incredible, they found them within the first few hours of excavation. The University of Leicester announced the identification in February 2013 after combining archaeological, osteological, and genetic evidence.

If you thought “Acoustic Kitty” was strange, this one might just take the cake. The X-Ray Project, as it was called, involved attaching small incendiary devices to bats so they would roost in buildings and start fires there. The tests ran into major problems, including the fact that the bats didn’t behave as expected and that accidental fires broke out during the trials. The fact that it was tested in the field makes this project hard to forget.