The Strangest Historical Facts: 17 Weird Stories From the Past

During the 1950s the British government, in a plan backed by Winston Churchill tested biological weapons on Gruinard Island in Scotland. British scientists formulated a plan of dropping anthrax-laced linseed cakes into cattle fields as a bio-nuke of sorts once it worked up the food chain. After initial experiments destroyed pretty much all life on the island, they decided that possibly killing off everything in continental Europe probably wasn't a good idea. The experiment left the island uninhabitable for 56 years. That was not the end of it. The government wasn’t even planning on cleaning up the island until a group of scientists dropped off contaminated soil at a military research facility and threatened to make further drops in order to “ensure the rapid loss of indifference of the government and the equally rapid education of the general public.” Therefore the cleanup of the island started in 1986.

In the trenches of France of World War 1, General Monash was given with the unenviable task of punching through the German line to claim the French town of Le Hamel. The way that Monash went about doing this was both revolutionary, and sneaky. German forces were well equipped, well-fortified, reinforced with heavy artillery and machine guns, and the troops were well trained. Faced by these odds, Monash began to “condition” the German forces. Every day at dawn, he would let loose a barrage of smoke bombs followed by mustard gas canisters. The Germans, following their training, would equip themselves with gas masks which protected them. Monash kept up this bombardment for two weeks, and soon the Germans became accustomed to the pattern of attack, and would immediately don their gas masks and hunker down at the first sign of smoke, but on the dawn of the 4th of July, the smoke bombs were not followed by gas, but by the Australians. The German gasmasks protected them from mustard gas and smoke, but they also vastly impeded their vision, hearing, and ability to communicate, with the noise of the battle, and the obscuring smoke, they were deaf and blind on the battlefield, and to make things worse, this was not an unprotected infantry massed-attack, but a creeping barrage supported by a division of tanks, heavy artillery, and aircraft. The tanks protected the vulnerable infantry, and the artillery and aircraft prevented the Germans from effectively deploying anti-tank measures. The battle was over in just 90 minutes and marked the rise of mixed-arms warfare.

During World War 2, the first V1 flying bombs were being launched by Germany against London and they were hitting Central London accurately. Germany had no agents in Britain. Not one. They thought they did, but every agent they sent over was caught and then either 'turned' or executed, and the other agents were all fictitious: imaginary ones dreamed up in a British campaign of disinformation that was and is breathtaking in and of itself. The government in the UK didn't want to risk the buildings, architecture, and heritage of the heart of London (quite a lot had been bombed out anyway), so the 'agents' reported back to Berlin that the V1s were overshooting their targets and coming down in North London. Fake stories planted in newspapers reinforced the deception. The Germans dutifully shortened the range, and the V1s bombed South London to ruins. One reason why a lot of Croydon in the 1960s was concrete is because of the damage done by the V1s in 1944.

A 340-year-old museum piece was once used to repel an invasion. The Dardanelles Operation of 1870 was a fairly minor skirmish during the Napoleonic wars. The Ottomans aligned with the French against Britain and Russia. The British sent a fleet to intimidate the Turks and force them to reopen the strait. As the British fleet sailed towards Constantinople, French engineers worked with the Turkish army to repair and improve shore defenses. Part of this included reactivating a 340-year-old super cannon modeled on the one used in the famed Turkish conquest of Constantinople in the 1400s. This cannon weighed 17 tons and fired stone cannonballs that were two feet in diameter. After meeting little resistance from the Turkish fleet, the British were forced to withdraw after taking heavy damage from the shore batteries, including from the colossal “Dardanelles Gun.” So yeah trebuchets are nice, but can they fire a 360 kg projectile over 2400 meters?

In Britain, unlike in the US, the Manhattan project had almost no security. Instead, they called the project ‘tube alloys.’ It was deemed that it sounded so boring that nobody would investigate it and they were right nobody did. It is the same story for military tanks. The project was named ship water tanks, seeing that the subject was bland and held no interest. It served to keep armored tracked development a secret. In the end, these tracked vehicles kept the name “tank” after the ruse name.

The capture of Fort Detroit in the War of 1812 was made possible by one great bluff paying off. British general Brock took the fort (guarded by 582 Regulars and 1600 militiamen) with a minimal force (50 regulars, 250 volunteers, and 200 natives) by shelling the walls, screaming, and continuously marching his men around to make it appear as though they had a force of several thousand regulars and natives. The British continued to support this by sending a letter they knew would be intercepted by the Americans that asked for no more natives be allowed into the area as there were already 5000 there. All of these mind games made American General Hull believe he was facing a superior force and he surrendered the fort to them without a fight.

In Qin China, 2 generals were late for a battle unfortunately due to rain and flooding. 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. So began the Dazexiang Uprising of 209 B.C., all due to rain. In another similar instance, the Han dynasty, which ushered China's golden ages, was started by a prisoner transport guard who realized he was going to arrive late with his prisoners, so he freed them, recruited them, and then started a rebellion.