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In the 1980s, Domino’s Pizza introduced a mascot named The Noid. Its main goal: stealing pizzas and making your pizza delivery late. The slogan: “Avoid the Noid.”
Unfortunately, there was a man with paranoid schizophrenia named Kenneth Noid who thought this whole campaign was created to mock and persecute him, due to the mascot’s name. So one day, Noid entered an Atlanta Domino’s location and took two employees hostage.
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During the 5-hour standoff, he got hungry. So he ordered the employees to make him some pizzas. Of course, he didn’t pay for any of them – thus inadvertently living up to The Noid’s tendency to steal pizzas.
He was eventually apprehended and spent some time in a mental institution until his death in 1995. Meanwhile, Domino’s retired the mascot due to what had happened and it was never mentioned again.
– u/buckyhermit
– u/buckyhermit
3
The Taiping Rebellion of 1850 to 1864 was the second most deadly singular conflict in history. At 25 million deaths. Only beaten by the Second World War.
– u/Baronnolanvonstraya
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Thats just under 5k deaths per day… every day… for 14 years… thats a lot of dead people, especially for that time… there was only about 1.2 Billion people total on earth.
– u/Baronnolanvonstraya
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Thats just under 5k deaths per day… every day… for 14 years… thats a lot of dead people, especially for that time… there was only about 1.2 Billion people total on earth.
To put that in perspective, that is about 2.1% of the TOTAL global population eliminated.
– u/Dredly
– u/Dredly
4
I’ve heard the story, but had to look it up to retell it:
In 1809 Jane Todd Crawford rode on horseback from Greensburg, KY to Danville, KY (60 miles) at the age of 44. She needed an abdominal tumor removed. The surgery was performed on Christmas day by Dr. Ephraim McDowell on his Kitchen Table, without anesthetic.
A part of the Fallopian tube (along with 22.5lbs of “stuff” – the tumor) was removed. After 25 days, she returned home (via horseback so the story goes) on the same path. It was considered the first successful intentional opening of the abdominal cavity to remove something. She died at 78.
– u/PhesteringSoars
– u/PhesteringSoars
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I mean this wasn’t an “event” per se but it is one of my favorite stories.
When the Titanic was sinking the head chef aboard knew the ship was going down, so he decided to take as much wine as he could and drink it. His logic was it was going to the bottom of the ocean anyway so why not.
Anyway so he gets pretty tipsy and continues to eat all the food he can find because lord knows how long they would be out there. The man also filled at least one lifeboat with food and drinks, but decided not to get on yet. So the boat is starting to do that iconic tilting into the air and the head chef decides to climb onto the railing and walk across it since it was basically a walkway at that point.
Continued…
Continued…
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Gets to the propellers just as the boat breaks in half and he rides it down he gets to the top and spends as much time he can out of the water by riding it down before being submerged into the ocean. He then waited for the lifeboats to come back and was one of the few people who survived while being in the water that night.
– u/AlkalineSoul
– u/AlkalineSoul
7
On September 16, 1920 there was a terrorist attack on Wall Street. At 12:01, 100 pounds of dynamite exploded in front of the corner at JP Morgan. Within minutes Wall Street looked like a war zone. Hundreds of pounds of metal fragments, which had been concealed inside the wagon that had hidden the bomb, filled the streets with shrapnel. Burned bodies littered the sidewalks and smoke filled the air.
No one ever claimed responsibility or was arrested.
– u/migistia
– u/migistia
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On August 6, 1915, undead Russian infantry successfully defended Osowiec Fortress against German forces despite being heavily outnumbered.
I should explain that “undead” bit.
The German forces consisted of (and Imma just quote wiki, because it’s a bit of a list) “14 battalions of infantry, one battalion of sappers, 24–30 heavy siege guns, and 30 batteries of artillery equipped with poison gases.” Russian forces were less than 1,000, and roughly half were militia, not regular infantry. The Russians were determined to hold the fortress, and did a remarkably good job of it, right up until the Germans flooded the entire structure with chlorine gas.
Continued…
Continued…
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For those of you unaware of what chlorine gas does, basically your eyes, throat, and lungs dissolve in a slurry of blood and disintegrating tissue.
Russian gas masks did not protect against chlorine gas, and the fortress had no defenses that would protect the inhabitants. The Germans waited for the gas to dissipate, and strolled right in.
The Russians counter-charged. A band of men, their skin sloughing away, coughing up pieces of lung, dead on their feet but too stubborn or angry to stop, charged the Germans. The Germans broke at the sight, ran, and were gunned down.
– u/The_First_Viking
– u/The_First_Viking
10
When the Mongols at their height of power conquered China, they were still in their phase of killing all the people and burning their cities, to turn it back to pasture for their horses. Huge swaths of Central Asia had already been treated so, laid to waste.
There was one guy, I don’t remember what his name was, a northern tribesman who’d fought against the Mongols but been captured and joined them. When they were deciding what to do with China, he convinced the Mongols there was more profit in leaving as it was and levying taxes, with which the Mongols could buy whatever they wanted.
Apparently that hadn’t occurred to the Mongols before, but that one guy definitely saved millions of lives.
– u/dxrey65
– u/dxrey65
11
In 1794, it rained toads in Lalaine, near a French city called Lille. This event was witnessed by soldiers.
– u/TophCookie
– u/TophCookie
12
The legend of the green children of Woolpit concerns two children of unusual skin colour who reportedly appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, some time in the 12th century, perhaps during the reign of King Stephen. The children, brother and sister, were of generally normal appearance except for the green colour of their skin. They spoke in an unknown language, and would only eat raw broad beans. Eventually they learned to eat other food and lost their green pallor, but the boy was sickly and died soon after he and his sister were baptised.
The girl adjusted to her new life, but she was considered to be “rather loose and wanton in her conduct”.[2] After she learned to speak English, the girl explained that she and her brother had come from Saint Martin’s Land, a subterranean world inhabited by green people.
– u/chinguetti
– u/chinguetti
13
The Halifax Explosion.
In 1917 a munitions ship detonated, creating the largest non-nuclear manmade explosion in history.
Thousands died, thousands were injured, and the ship was burning long enough to attract enough attention that the detonation blinded even thousands more.
Boston participated heavily in responding to the disaster. To this day, Nova Scotia donates the Christmas tree that is displayed publicly in Boston every year.
– u/DrunkbyDesign
– u/DrunkbyDesign
14
There was a span of time where Clocks were already a thing but were too luxurious for the average citizen. But most cities had one on their church or something, and since the day starts a little bit different everywhere, every city had their own time zone.
It had to be generalized over the globe because of industrial revolution and Railroads getting more popular but it still took a very long time for every Village to be convinced that it would be better to adapt.
– u/shinyPave
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I’ve seen this. There was apparently a crossover period where the clocks in some towns would have two different minute hands. One for local time and one for train time. It was an unsuccessful solution.
– u/Dogbin005
– u/shinyPave
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I’ve seen this. There was apparently a crossover period where the clocks in some towns would have two different minute hands. One for local time and one for train time. It was an unsuccessful solution.
– u/Dogbin005
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That time a dentist got pissed at Japan because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor so he declared war on Japan and suggested making bombs using bats, and the U.S. military actually went through with attempting to make them. They only stopped making their bat bombs because they developed the nuke.
– u/DrBlowtorch
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Their reasoning was that bats roost in attics and towers, so they would go to roost, detonate flammable material and light everything on fire.
– u/DrBlowtorch
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Their reasoning was that bats roost in attics and towers, so they would go to roost, detonate flammable material and light everything on fire.
Pretty ingenious idea if you are attempting to burn down entire cities of civilians.
– u/Dredly
– u/Dredly
16
In 1979 the US space station Skylab was de-orbited. Some of the debris that survived re-entry landed in rural Australia, and they jokingly gave NASA a 400$ fine for littering. The fine was unpaid for 3 decades until a US radio host raised the money.
– u/Delta5-6
– u/Delta5-6
17
Thanks to Russia wanting Pepsi in the 80’s, and being unable to pay for it with cash, Pepsi was briefly the sixth largest naval power on the planet due to being paid in Russian naval vessels.
They sold the ships for scrap, but imagine if they’d kept it.
– u/Stargate525
– u/Stargate525
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