15 Unbelievable Historical Events That Defy Logic Yet Truly Happened
History’s got a reputation for being as dry as a mouthful of sand — but honestly, that’s just because it’s often told like a snooze fest. Believe me, when you dig beneath the surface, you find some downright jaw-dropping tales that make you go, “No way that actually happened!” Yet, here we are, armed with well-documented proof that these unbelievable moments truly shaped our world. From a guy who single-handedly stopped a nuclear apocalypse to a man who survived two atomic bombs (yes, two!), and even a war lost to giant flightless birds — this collection is a wild ride through time and space. So, buckle up and prepare to have your brain tickled by history’s strangest twists and turns. You might just start looking forward to your next history lesson — who knew? <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14huo78/whataresomeeventsinrecordedhistorythatare/” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener”>LEARN MORE
History gets a bad rap as a dry subject. History can be fascinating when taught and understood correctly, and hidden throughout human history are extraordinary stories that would be difficult to believe if they weren’t so well-documented. One online community recently gathered many of these stories in one place, giving us an opportunity to review some of the most extraordinary and unbelievable events throughout human history.
What’s great about this list is that we get a truly broad range of regions and time periods. There’s tons of fascinating trivia in here to scratch that intellectual itch in your brain!
There would have been a third, and a nuclear, world war and possibly the end of the world if Stanislaw Petrow didn’t react like he did on the 25th of September 1983. In short: he was the only one that questioned the readings on the russian missle alert system and refused to launch nuclear counter-missiles.
There was a Japanese man called Tsutomu Yamaguchi who was on his way to work in Hiroshima in 1945, when he saw falling through the sky, two miles from where he stood, what ultimately turned out to be the atomic bomb.
He had just enough time to take cover in a ditch as the bomb detonated and miraculously he survived. Somehow the Hiroshima train station was still operational and so Yamaguchi, battered, bombed and bruised, decided to board a train to his family home so he could recover – in Nagasaki.
3 days later Yamaguchi was called into work to explain what he saw, which he did. At work as he began to tell the story of what happened, the second bomb dropped.
It was the reinforced concrete walls around him that saved him this time, and Yamaguchi quickly ran to find his wife and son. Ground temperatures in the city reached 4,000°C and radioactive rain poured down.
The family’s home was destroyed, but Yamaguchi’s wife and son had thankfully been out shopping – looking for burn ointment for Yamaguchi – when the bomb fell, and they’d survived.
Despite this ordeal of having survived two nuclear explosions and subsequent radiation exposure, Yamaguchi went on to live till 93 yrs of age. He died in 2010 after being recognised by the Japanese government as a ‘nijyuu hibakusha’, or ‘twice-bombed person’.
Australia’s Emu war.
Not only is it hilarious that they went to war with a bird, but the fact that they lost to the birds is the cherry on top.
In 1944, during the allied invasion of France, 2 American paramedics, Ken Moore and Robert Wright, 101st Airborne, saved around 80 soldiers of both sides, allied and axis. They set themselves up in a church, had only what was in their first aid kits and medic bags, and had a strict no gun policy. The church was almost destroyed by a mortar shell, but it didn’t go off. It was almost destroyed again, due to friendly fire. Ken Moore would risk his life by venturing out of the church and finding injured soldiers, and both medics stayed behind at the church, even though the rest of their forces had to retreat. Wright took on the responsibility of looking after the soldiers.
The church still stands in Angoville-au-Plain, France, the blood stained pews are still there, and a broken tile from the mortar shell was never fixed, to honor the legacy of these men.
This is very simplified, and probably inaccurate in a few ways, but it is still an incredible story.
In 1903, The New York Times published an article about flying machines. They stated that it would take the combined efforts of all Mathematicians and mechanics 1-to-10 million years for powered flight to be achieved.
Anyway, about 9 weeks later, the Wright brothers achieved powered flight for the first time.
They were also overly cynical afterwards, In 1910 they said that flight would only ever be for billionaires, of course we had commercial flights by around the 60s achievable for many.
The Ghost Army in WWII. Essentially an American group of troops would deploy “dummy” tanks, broadcast fake radio chatter, and deploy loud sound effects over speakers to fool the Nazis into thinking there was a large military presence coming their way. The Ghost Army was used to deceive the Nazis and make them send their military presence elsewhere, which provided openings for the real Allied forces to move in. This was used in the later parts of the war.
I never learned about this in school but I discovered it on my own and thought it was fascinating. Imagine thinking a whole mess of tanks are heading your way but in reality, it’s a couple of inflatable dummies and a few speakers.
