50 Funniest Real Events From History Too Hard to Believe

In London, in 1814, a vat containing over 610,00 liters of beer ruptured, causing other vats to burst. As a result, more than 1,470,000L of beer burst out into the streets. The London Beer Flood wave destroyed two homes and crumbled the wall of a nearby pub. 8 people died.

Joseph Stalin sent several assassins to kill Yugoslavia’s dictator Josip Broz Tito. After a 5th failed attempt, Tito wrote to Stalin “Stop sending people to kill me. We’ve already captured 5 of them, one with a bomb and another with a rifle. If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow and I won't have to send a second.”

The KGB tried to blackmail Indonesian President Achmed Sukarno with videotapes of the president having sex with Russian women disguised as flight attendants. Before starting the blackmail, KGB invited Sukarno in a small private movie theatre and showed him the pornographic video, in which he was playing the main part. KGB agents were expecting him to get really frightened and that he would agree to cooperate with them at once, but everything happened vice versa: Sukarno fondly thought that it was a gift from the Soviet government, so he asked for more copies to take them back to Indonesia and show them in movie theatres. Sukarno said to flabbergasted agents that the people of Indonesia would be very proud of him, if they could see him doing the nasty with Russian girls.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once wrote a 6-Part Canon titled “Leck mich im Arsch,” which loosely translates to "Lick me in the Arse.” He also used to keep a journal detailing his farts.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once entered a room unannounced during a visit by Winston Churchill. Churchill happened to be naked (having just stepped out of the bath), and Churchill, being Churchill said: “The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has nothing to hide from the President of the United States!”

Danish astronomer, alchemist, and nobleman Tycho Brahe lost his nose after challenging another scientist to a duel to settle once and for all whose mathematical formula was better. He wore a metal prosthetic nose for the rest of his life. He also had a pet moose that died when it drank too much beer and fell down a flight of stairs. In 1601, Tycho attended a party during which he held himself from going to the bathroom, subsequently suffered a burst bladder, and died 10 days later.

In the late 1910s, the British Army was looking for Michael Collins to arrest him as he was part of Dáil Eireann (an Irish state Government which the British did not recognize as they did not grant Ireland independence). Collins was the head of intelligence and was in charge of IRA hit squads so he was a priority for the British to find and arrest. You'd think the man would go into hiding somewhere right? Nope, he rode around Dublin city on a bicycle in plain view because the British army had no idea what he looked like.

There was a famous 18th-century racehorse named Potoooooooo. His original name was Potatoes. Potatoes acquired the strange spelling of his nickname, Pot-8-Os, when a stable lad was asked to write it on a feed bin. The lad’s version, Potoooooooo, was said to amuse his lordship so he kept it.

During the Victorian Era, “Female Hysteria” was a catchall term for many feelings of malaise, including when a woman was horny. Doctors “treated” the ailment by masturbating the women until they reached “hysterical paroxysm”, or as we call it today, an orgasm. The electric vibrator was the fifth home electronic ever invented. Doctors created vibrators after growing tired of masturbating ‘hysterical’ women. It was then prescribed to women who experienced “hysteria.”

Before the invention of the stethoscope, physicians would literally put their ears on chests to auscultate. This led to René Laennec, a French physician, to create the stethoscope because he got too embarrassed to check the heartbeat of a female patient by tapping at her chest. So, he rolled up a sheet of paper to create a tube, and then placed it on her chest. The method worked, and the stethoscope was invented.