Historical Events That Are Hard To Believe Happened

Second Chance Flight

"My colleague was on the plane to Hawaii where the entire top of the plane ripped off… they flew the rest of the way without any overhead."

"They landed and everyone walked off. It's absolutely insane to see the pictures. Talk about being given a second chance."

- SkydivingSquid

Running Late for the Olympics

"In 1908, Russia showed up 12 days late to the Olympics because the world switched calendars while they did not."

- drailCA

"To accommodate the Russian team, some events were rescheduled so that the Russian athletes could participate. This led to a longer duration for those Olympics, which lasted from April 27 to October 31, making it the longest Olympic Games in history."

- parkerjh

An Inescapable War

"The Battle of Bull Run, one of the first battles of the US Civil War, occurred on and around Wilmer McClean's farm in Northern Virginia. Not wanting to live surrounded by war, McClean and his family moved to Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia."

"The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse was the last significant battle between Union and Confederate forces. The Confederates signed the surrender order in Wilmer's sitting room."

"It is said that the Civil War started on Wilmer's farm and ended in his sitting room."

- csudebate

History of Bombings

"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."

"Three 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 recognized by the Japanese government as a 'nijyuu hibakusha,' or 'twice-bombed person.'"

- Voodizzy_

A Monumental Fall

"Nicholas Alkemade fell 18,000 feet without a parachute from a burning plane in 1944 and suffered no serious injury."

- hazps

"I see how the snow cover helped but how he didn’t get skewered by pine trees or break a single bone is shocking."

- switchbladeeatworld

"Imagine what he was thinking when he got up from that fall. What kind of crazy thoughts were running through his head."

- Lankey_Craig

"'Yeah, no one is gonna believe this one.'"

- Pennywise626

"Germans almost didn't, after finding him in just a flight suit but no parachute. They initially pegged him as a spy who'd been dropped behind their lines and had stashed his chute and gear. As such, he was likely to be executed."

"Except Alkemade was so insistent his captors went and found the wreckage of his aircraft, with the burnt remains of his chute stashed behind his gun position. Germans told him the news and shared vodka with him to celebrate."

- JohnnyJohnCowboyMan

Mass Dance in France

"That time everyone died of a dancing sickness where they danced themselves to death in France. Mass hysteria."

- DavinaCole

"St. Vitus’ Dance, as it is called, still doesn’t have a definitely known cause."

"New research as of 2021 shows Sydenham chorea as the most likely cause."

- ENFJPLinguaphile

The Return of the Sun

"The Battle of Halys."

"In roughly 6th century BC, the Medes and the Lydians were at war. The war had lasted for six years and climaxed at the Battle of Halys."

"During the battle, a solar eclipse began. Both sides believed that the Gods were angry at their long and bloody war, and were taking the sun away from them."

"They declared peace that day, and the sun was returned. But yeah, a war ended because of a solar eclipse."

- TheRogueBear

A Spicy Battle

"The Nutmeg Wars. The Dutch and the English went to war THREE times over nutmeg, which at the time was only known to grow on one South Pacific island."

- missoularedhead

Entertaining Prisoners

"Theodore Roosevelt found his boat was stolen. So he built a new boat, tracked the thieves down, and arrested them."

"He then proceeded to walk them multiple days, without sleeping, so they could receive a trial instead of just shooting them on the spot."

"It was in the middle of a harsh winter so he didn’t handcuff them (for fear they’d get frostbite), so instead, he just kept himself awake by reading Tolstoy with a gun trained on them the whole trek."

- Another_Road

"That's only the twenty-second most Teddy thing I've ever read, but a new one, which makes me love it."

- Beard_of_Valor

"I am always half convinced that Teddy Roosevelt was not a real person. No one could have been that absolutely wild and done that many things, but there is just too much overwhelming proof."

- LeSilverKitsune

Christmas Day 1914

"Christmas day 1914. The truce on the WW1 battlefields."

"It shows the humanity inside everyone, but they were able to wake up the next day and go straight back to war, kill the men that they’d spent a sincere day with."

- PotterWhoLock01

Honoring Everyone's Dead

"I can't remember where I saw/heard the story of Christmas Day 1914 (I think from the BBC), but I believe from one of the last-living Tommys, who said that whilst they were forced to start shooting at each other, the majority of shots intentionally missed, from both sides of no man's land."

"I believe it was also the same man who said, in reference to Remembrance Day, to also remember the Germans. That stuck with me. They were like our lads; sent out to fight a war for war's sake, forced to do unspeakable things to other men because some higher-up told them they had to."

- The_Gene_Genie

"Australia is a bit like this with regard to the Turks on ANZAC Day."

"One of the main ceremonies is reading the letter from Turkish commander and later founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk:"

"'Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore, rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours...'"

"'You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons, as well.'"

- Zebidee

The Medical Church

"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."

- JustACanadianGuy07

A Lack of Perspective

"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 nine weeks later, the Wright brothers achieved powered flight for the first time."

"They were also overly cynical after. 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."

- Joe_PM2804

The Year Without Summer

"1816, The Year Without Summer."

- theassassintherapist

"I'm a big classic horror fan, so I'm kinda glad this happened. Indirectly lead to Mary Shelley writing 'Frankenstein.'"

- UniversalHammer71

An Astronomical Life Cycle

"Halley's Comet appeared in the sky when Mark Twain was born in 1835."

"The comet moves in a seventy-five or seventy-six-year orbit, and, as it neared Earth once again, Twain said, 'I came in with Halley’s Comet and I expect to go out with it.'"

"Sure enough, he died on April 21, 1910, just as the comet made its next pass within sight of Earth."

- SuvenPan

While history may not be everyone's favorite subject, it'd be really hard to believe if someone didn't find at least one of these hard-to-believe occurrences interesting.