So that happened...

It's been a while since the last time we did weird trivia, so here we go:

In 1876, in Olympia Springs, Kentucky it rained strips of meat one day. There has never been a good explanation a to why it rained mystery meat, but some suspect a large flock of vultures may have gorged themselves and then vomited, which they do when they feel threatened. I don't know what is better, meat rain or vulture vomit...

Everyone knows that sport riots can cause huge damages both to people and buildings, but they are not a new phenomenon. In AD 532 a riot erupted in then Constantinople over a combination of politics and chariot racing which was super popular. This riot apparently claimed 30.000 lives and destroyed a large part of the city including the Hagia Sophia. Emperor Justinian had to deploy thousands of imperial soldiers to put a stop to the madness.

In 1932 during the Great Depression, Australian farmers grew more wheat to make ends meet, which had the unforeseen side effect of attracting hungry emus. The abundance of food made the emus breed more and soon there were huge flocks of these large birds roaming around attacking farms. An emu is pretty big and they can be dangerous. On top of that, their thick dense feathers are hard to penetrate with small arms, so the farmers asked the government for help. Soldiers were deployed and the Emu War had begun. A war Australia lost. Good thing they were emus and not cassowaries.

In July of 1518 a strange event started in Strasburg, Germany. People started dancing uncontrollably in the streets. They apparently could not stop and several died from stroke or exhaustion. Theories range from the infamous ergot poisoning to mass hysteria, but to this day no one knows why people danced themselves to death.

To be named Time Magazine Man of the Year, one has to do something that makes a huge impact. However this impact is essentially neutral, in that it doesn't have to be a positive or negative impact. This is why in 1938, Hitler was made Man of the Year. This in itself is well known, but did you know that in 1939 he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize? The nomination was made by a Swedish member of parliament, and was intended as a satirical critique. Whether that was true or not, the nomination was canceled within a few days.

From dancing to laughing. In 1962 at the University of Tanganyika in Tanzania, three girls suddenly started laughing and they couldn't stop. This strange madness spread to over a thousand students and the university had to close for several months. The theory of mass hysteria was again suggested but no one knows for sure.

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, conqueror of Europe was defeated not only by Wellington but also by rabbits. In 1807, Napoleon wanted to celebrate the peace between France and Russia with a massive rabbit hunt. He acquired 3000 rabbits which were set loose, but the hungry rabbits attacked the people and jumped all over them looking for food, leading to the desperate retreat of the Master of France.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!