Ever wonder about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
Somebody throws a grenade at his car.
It blows up behind him.
That's the first incident of time travel, stopping the assassination.
Later, as he goes back, the driver realizes he's on the same route where the grenade was thrown, and they try to turn around.
The whole procession of cars stalls and a guy who just happened to be sitting there goes over and shoots the Archduke setting off the events that lead to the first world war.
Did a time traveler meddle then?
Wouldn't surprise us.
People shared their own observations after Redditor HeteroZygoats asked the online community:
"What historical event 100% reads as if a time traveler went back in time to alter history?"
"When they draw straws..."
"Edgar Allen Poe writes about an event 40+ years in the future.:
Basically, Poe writes about four people who are starving at sea, draw straws, and kill and eat the loser, cabin boy Richard Parker. 40 odd years later four people are adrift at sea in a lifeboat, one drinks seawater and goes into a coma."
"When they draw straws for who will be eaten, the coma guy gets the short straw in a development that surprises no one. And so the three other men kill and eat the cabin boy. Richard Parker. Seriously."
This sounds like the perfect treatment for an episode of The Twilight Zone.
"There was a shipwreck..."
"There was a shipwreck in 1664, a shipwreck in 1785, and a shipwreck in 1820. Each had 1 survivor. Each survivor was named Hugh Wiliams."
What did the original Hugh Williams do to deserve any of this?!
"When Andrew Jackson's assassin..."
"When Andrew Jackson's assassin attempted to shoot him, both of his flintlock pistols misfired. Andrew Jackson had to be restrained after almost beating the assassin to death with his cane. The two flintlocks were examined after the incident and found to be in good condition."
Jackson was a pretty horrid human being—and it doesn't surprise me that this happened.
"20,000 people..."
"Cyanide Gas Attack Thwarted in Tokyo Subway."
"20,000 people could have died but a worker found a burning gasbag in a toilet just before it mixed with another poisonous gas bag - just in time - and put them out. That was in Shinjuku station. I was in that station that day, and that person might have saved my life."
I remember learning about this and it's so eerie!
Thankfully this did not happen.
"It was so much happenstance..."
"Franz Ferdinand's assassination. It was so much happenstance, shenanigans, and tomfoolery that it's like a special achievement in a hitman game."
"Survived both the bombings..."
"Tsutomu Yamaguchi."
"Survived both the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reads like a satirical time-traveler story where the protagonist screws up his dates."
"The number of times we DIDN'T go to nuclear war because of a false positive of a launch. Honestly, Stanislav Petrov should have statues in every country."
The Most Unexplained Events In History | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
History is littered with unsolved mysteries. Whether those answers are buried somewhere or lost forever, it doesn't stop people from wondering or hypothesizi..."Jack Ruby..."
"Jack Ruby clearly was sent to kill Lee Harvey Oswald so no one would ever discover it wasn't him who killed Kennedy."
I mean... when you put it that way... can we argue?
Fidel Castro's assassination attempts..."
"Fidel Castro's assassination attempts being dodged is so unrealistic (really, he dodged about 600) that it feels like a time traveler went back and foiled every single one of them."
"If the time traveler can control the weather, the 'divine wind' that stopped the Mongol invasion of Japan."
Poor Genghis Khan.
We weep for him.
"If you're reading..."
"If you read up on his life, you'll find there are so many times Adolf Hitler almost died, but somehow survived, that makes me think there was/is a time traveler war going on."
"A faction trying to kill Hitler, because it's Hitler, and a faction preventing his death because the guy who would replace him was even worse than Hitler."
Maybe Hitler had a guardian angel... which is a scary thought as it is.
Sheesh.
"The Germans spent a lot of time..."
"The Germans spent a lot of time and money developing a magnetic sea mine that probably would have significantly reduced England's ability to stay in the war, except they dropped a single one of the mines accidentally on an English beach, and also failed to arm it so none of the booby traps were active and the British basically found out straight away how it worked and we're able to cheaply build magnetic minesweepers."
"It wouldn't be surprising..."
"It wouldn't be surprising if Nancy Wake was a time traveler. She was just too damn good at special ops against the Nazis."
History is wild, friends. And it's even wilder that so many people out there don't realize how weird and exciting it can be.
Have some observations of your own? Teach us some history! Tell us more in the comments below!
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
@annewheaton/Threads
@richardadlof/Threads
@mikeisaphreek/Threads
@daisymouze/Threads
