20 Historic Rebellions With Tragic and Bloody Ends

During an English peasant revolt, a rebel leader nicknamed Captain Pouch promised to protect the rebels by the contents of his pouch. When the rebellion failed and he was captured, all that was found in his pouch was a piece of green cheese.

During the Dazexiang uprising, in Qin China, 2 generals were late for a battle. Given that the penalty for being late for a government job was death, they decided to take their soldiers and start a rebellion to fight for their freedom, as the punishment for rebellion was also death.

During the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, President George Washington became the only sitting president to ever lead troops in the field.

During the French Revolution, radicals tried to introduce two competing religions to replace Christianity: the atheist Cult of Reason and the deist Cult of the Supreme Being.

During the Batavia mutiny of 1628, 340 survivors of a wreck were stranded on an island off the coast of Australia. A pharmacist leading the survivors had dozens massacred and by the time rescue arrived, there had been a battle for a makeshift fort built by survivors and over 100 people were dead.

During the 1916 Umatilla Petticoat Rebellion, a stealth write-in campaign by newly enfranchised women voters elected female candidates to every open seat of an Oregon town government, with the mayor losing office to his wife.

During the 1848 uprising in Vienna, Emperor Ferdinand I asked Chancellor Metternich, upon seeing the protesters from his palace, what they were doing to which Metternich replied "They are making a revolution" to which the Emperor asked, "But are they allowed to do that?"

During the 2014 Thai coup d'etat, sandwiches were used as an anti-coup symbol, and a group of students were charged with "possessing sandwiches with ill intent."

During the Easter Uprising in 1916 British Soldiers and Irish Volunteers held a cease-fire so that the groundskeepers could feed the ducks on St. Stephen's Green.

During the Nian Rebellion over 100,000 people died when young men frustrated over the massive lack of women to marry rebelled against the Qing empire.