29 Exceedingly Confusing Historical Events

‘Germany defeating the French so quickly in WW2’
29 Exceedingly Confusing Historical Events

Just because something’s recorded history, doesn’t mean it makes sense in retrospect. Despite being well beyond both the cause and effect of the events of the past, sometimes, looking back, they still leave you far from an acceptable explanation. It seems that occasionally, the whole world just does some exceedingly weird shit.

Redditors, even ones well-educated in world history, volunteered bits of information that don’t make a goddamn lick of sense to them. Things that we have full context for, but defy reason all the same. 

If you want to toss a couple of those chestnuts in your own brain to rattle around, read on.

Thompson_S_Sweetback 13y ago I've always wondered what day to day life was like for princes in the Ottoman empire back when the new Sultan would execute all of his brothers. Did they know each other as children? Did they form alliances like the Hunger Games? Did their moms brag about how gifted they were at murdering when they were still really little?
Tom m 13y ago the Tulip mania in the Netherlands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip mania Tulip bulbs were traded for extraordinary high prices. A rare tulip bulb would cost around 2500 florins when the yearly income of a skilled labourer was 250 florins a year. Eventually the bubble burst and many people lost their money.
InferiousX 13y ago  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black Monday_(1 987). a day in 1987 in which the Dow lost something like 22% in one day. I believe the largest percentage day loss in stock market history. What's odd about it, is that no one can really agree on what exactly caused it. It just kind of happened and has been even labeled by some as a Black Swan Event
BenZonaa129 . 13y ago Why the fuck does everyone keep on trying to invade Russia during the winter?
Rocknocker 13y ago The Cambrian. | mean, everything's cruising along nicely in the Neoproterozoic, and there's some sort of global oceanic crisis and then bam, shelled creatures everywhere. | mean, nothing against trilobites, but microbial mats and stromatolites took it in the ass 541 million years ago.
duckybucks 13y ago Rasputin's death...or lack thereof. Was that man Houdini or something? I mean, there were like, 7 attempts on his life in a row, and the final nail in the coffin was when they threw him in a river in the middle of winter. When his body was recovered he had untied himself and was trying to claw his way out, as shown by the ice under his nails....
doc_daneeka . 13y ago The lead up to WWI. Everyone saw it coming, the people in power often knew it was going to be very bad, and nobody seriously tried to hit the emergency brake.
Traece . 13y ago Honestly, a large portion of Russian history. That's not to say that I have anything against Russia, but I feel like a large portion of their history involves their rulers being pretty crazy. That's not even including some of the things Russia attempted to make, a lot of which flat- out require use of the phrase, what the fuck were they thinking? Especially war machines.
 . 13y ago Anything between the abandonment of the megolithic structures of anchient cultures until now. How did that knowledge and history get lost so easily? So ~1000 B.C. up until around 1600 A.D.
Iptomtom 13y ago The things that the Japanese army did in the first half of the 20th century, in particular the rape of Nanking (and I'm not the only one, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris Chang : she wrote a book about it and it fucked her up so bad she ended up killing herself) or their experiments during WW2. I just cannot understand how a human being can do these things.
kazneus 13y ago Marion Barry getting reelected to the office of mayor. | mean I get it, but also: seriously?
 . 13y ago the frontiersmen. I can't imagine wandering off the side of a map with nothing but the things I carry. How anyone believed it would end well for them is beyond me.
antipromaybe . 13y ago Germany defeating the French so quickly in WW2; how such a large army could be so poorly managed.
Mordisquitos . 13y ago The whole political history of Spain since the Napoleonic invasion. Studying it in high school was like watching a frustrating tragicomedy where you keep coming across characters who you just know have their heart in the right place and sane political ideals, only for them to fall out of favour with the crown, get assassinated or resign for no good reason.
 . 13y ago The European Dancing Plague of the 14th - 17th century.
Jeffy29 13y ago Edited 13y ago China not conquering whole world or atleast giant portion of asia. I am not talking about todays China, but the China in middle ages, until like 15th century, China was the most advanced civilization with giant population and wealth. Chinese ships in that period were much bigger than european ones and they traded all the way to somalia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He I am history enthusiast and I like to play historical games (paradox ones are awesome) and implementing China in those games is very hard because they are incredibly strong, so for a player, it's a
EnchantingGhost 13y ago Interbellum France, in particular the construction of the Maginot Line. Why didn't they plan for a German invasion through Belgium? It seems like a glaring oversight considering the Germans went through Belgium in WWI.
Nasserx . 13y ago The inability of Medieval peoples to recreate a dome structure. They could see the domes that Romans built. They could even deconstruct one if they wanted. But they could not figure out how to build one. Baffling to me.
mortiphago 13y ago Remember how the romans and greeks had republics, some degree of democracy, took baths, etc... and then pretty much all of that was lost during the medieval dark ages? It always boggles my mind how so much advancement could be lost so swiftly. Imagine how advanced today's society would be if we hadn't lost 400 years or so.
InstantCanoe 13y ago Mozarts life, so talented at a young age (writing symphonies and what not) and goes on to never make a mistake on the original print of the music he makes. The guy was clearly a time traveler looking to get some old timey tail.
thenameonthebox . 13y ago In english tudor times people would blacken and remove their teeth to give the impression that they were rich enough to eat lots of sugar. Seriously. Vanity level 99.
RedditTooAddictive . 13y ago How man became smart/self-conscious. We are the only element in the nature we know to be that evolved. How is that possible ?
Professor_Lavahot 13y ago The US had this big weird obsession with Australia in the '80s that came and went really fast, but seems to have occurred for no reason. A precursor to how fads live and die on the Internet, I suppose. In 2030 our kids will be rooting through thrift stores saying What the hell is with all these owl and moustache shirts?
Berdiie . 13y ago I'm really confused as to how women forgot or were made to forget that sex was awesome for many hundreds of years. We went from tribes of female fertility worshipers to a period of time where young women needed doctors to teach them how to masturbate because they were suffering from hysteria.
whatsgeeyanee . 13y ago the scandal of Enron. How the heck did we let it go on for so long?
 13y ago Disco. Why do people vilify it? Whats so bad about reverberated vocals, horns, background electric pianos and wah-pedaled chicken- scratch guitars? My understanding is that people would dance to this music in clubs.
tomqvaxy . 13y ago Now. We have all the scientific information pointing towards climate collapse and we are doing nothing. Nothing at all.
pinkpanthers . 13y ago The global financial situation since 2008. I think there is still a lot that we don't know and a lot more to come.
tanktopbluesman 13y ago Captain Cook and Australia being 'Terra Nullius' or 'owned by no one.' He'd been past New Zealand, found that to be occupied by indigenous people and left it at that. Found the east coast of Australia found it occupied by indigenous people, got shipwrecked on the Barrier Reef, had his and his crew's collective ass saved by the locals and then did what? Oh, nothing to report. It's yours, Your Majesty. A bit of a glib rundown, but jeez, could've been handled a tad better to say the least.

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