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History isn't just about famous battles and monarchs—it's filled with unbelievable tales that somehow slipped through the cracks! Join us as we explore mind-boggling historical events that deserve wider recognition. From an actual war against emus to a dancing plague that consumed hundreds, these forgotten stories prove truth is stranger than fiction!
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00:00There was a Polish resistance fighter who volunteered to go to Auschwitz, from where he sent secret messages to warn the world.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at fascinating stories from history that deserve more attention.
00:12It would have been microscopic, so to speak.
00:16Number 10. Wojtek the wartime bear.
00:18Ain't no rules say a bear can't serve in World War II.
00:22In what sounds like something from a Disney movie, a boy in Iran discovered a bear whose mother had been shot by hunters.
00:28At the request of a Polish general's great-niece, Anders' army purchased the bear, who'd be named Wojtek, a.k.a. Happy Warrior.
00:37Wojtek had officially joined the army.
00:40To the 22nd Artillery Supply Company, Wojtek was more than a mascot.
00:45He was one of their own, drinking with soldiers, smoking and eating cigarettes, and marching on two legs.
00:51Wojtek even carried ammunition crates.
00:53To keep Wojtek in their care, the bear was officially made a private and then a corporal.
00:59I didn't realize that he had got a rank, and I didn't realize that they had got to that state.
01:06This was the added incentive that people would recognize him as a genuine entity of the 2nd Polish Army.
01:17After the war, Wojtek was donated to Scotland's Edinburgh Zoo, where he lived out the rest of his life.
01:23Number 9. The Bloody Benders
01:25In an age overrun with true crime content, we're surprised more people aren't familiar with the Bloody Benders.
01:32The Bloody Benders.
01:33John Bender, John Bender, Kate Bender, and Kate Bender.
01:37The Benders were a family of four, although it's debated whether the two youngest were siblings or a couple.
01:43That's one of the many missing puzzle pieces, including where they came from before arriving in Kansas.
01:49What we can say with certainty is that the Benders ran an inn, and claimed more than 10 lives over roughly two years.
01:56Eventually, one of the missing traveler's brothers, a colonel during the Civil War, started an investigation.
02:02On April 4th, 1873, investigators questioned the Benders, deducing that their home was the last place the doctor was seen alive.
02:10By the time bodies were uncovered, the Benders had already fled.
02:13While several accused accomplices were arrested, there are conflicting reports over whether the Benders were killed or got away with murder.
02:21During the search, the Benders' wagon was discovered abandoned in Thayer, Kansas, 16 miles north of Cherryvale.
02:28A train agent reported selling four people, that matched the Benders' description, tickets to Humboldt, 20 miles north of Thayer.
02:36After that, the lead went cold.
02:38Number 8. The Great Emu War
02:41Lemu, Emu, and Doug might lead you to believe that flightless birds and humans have always coexisted in harmony.
02:47Long before they helped people save money on car insurance, the Emu was man's natural enemy.
02:53More specifically, they were the enemies of Australian farmers in 1932.
02:57As many as 20,000 migrating emus found their way onto farms after breeding.
03:02Between World Wars I and II, Australians went to war with emus, which had been destroying crops at a time when wheat was in demand.
03:11When we say war, you might think we're exaggerating, but many of these farmers were former soldiers, and armed soldiers from the Royal Australian Artillery even got involved.
03:20The worst part about emus is that it's not what they eat, it's what they flatten.
03:25They just tramp around out in a crop and knock it all over and play in it and just be a damn nuisance.
03:33Although a reported 2,500 emus were slain, the birds were faster, stronger, and more agile than expected, winning the war with most of the population preserved.
03:43One thing's for sure, Australia greatly underestimated the emus.
03:517. The Kentucky Meat Shower
03:53Has it ever literally rained cats and dogs?
03:56Well, it remains unclear what kind of meat fell from the sky on March 3rd, 1876.
04:01So, maybe?
04:03On March 3rd, 1876, Rebecca Crouch was outside with her grandson when meat started to rain down in Bath County.
04:10That's in eastern Kentucky.
04:12Kentucky residents felt like they were in a scene straight out of Exodus, when what looked like pieces of red meat bombarded the land below.
04:19It only lasted a few minutes, between 11 a.m. and noon, but historians are still searching for answers over a century later.
04:26A lot of people left here impressed and enjoyed very, very interesting stories.
04:32Actually, it came from other people who had relatives or descendants.
04:36They were descendants of people that, you know, visited or saw it back when it happened.
04:40Assuming these chunks from the heavens were indeed meat, people couldn't seem to agree on whether it derived from cattle, lamb, or even humans.
04:48As for how this happened, the most popular theory was that vultures vomited while in flight.
04:53Whatever the explanation, it's an enigma with plenty to chew on.
04:57When I was in school, if this was part of history class, you talked about things like that.
05:01Number six, President Lincoln's theater guests.
05:05Much has been written about Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and the assassination that altered American history.
05:11As the audience laughed uproariously, the assassin slipped easily into the president's box.
05:16He moved like a shadow, with a grace at odds with his purpose.
05:20What many failed to realize is that the Lincolns weren't the only ones sitting in the presidential box that fateful night.
05:26Henry Rathbone, a lawyer turned Union Army officer, and his fiancée, Clara Harris, were invited to Ford's theater as Lincoln's guests.
05:34Once the shot was fired, Rathbone attempted to stop Booth, who stabbed him as he made his escape.
05:39Henry had been cut deep, almost to the bone, from his elbow to his shoulder.
05:44Rathbone recovered from his physical wounds, but his mental health diminished over time.
05:48After marrying, Rathbone killed Harris.
05:52Their children might have met the same fate, if not for a groundskeeper.
05:56Although Rathbone attempted to take his own life, he spent the remainder of his days institutionalized.
06:01He remained there until his death in 1911.
06:05Number five, The Fairy of Verdun.
06:07A soprano opera singer from Paris, Nellie Martle regularly appeared on stage and in fashion magazines.
06:14Amid World War I, Martle pursued a new career path as a Red Cross nurse.
06:19Between 1916 and 1917, she provided aid during the Battle of Verdun and the Second Battle of the Aisne.
06:26For her efforts at the former, Martle came to be known as The Fairy of Verdun.
06:31Even after the war ended, Martle dedicated herself to helping others.
06:35She provided care throughout the 1918 flu pandemic, and later started a medical charity.
06:41Martle would be honored with the Croix de Guerre, a French military award for soldiers who served in the First World War.
06:47Yet her name deserves to be sung higher praises.
06:51Number four, The Dancing Plague of 1518.
06:54Dance fever is one thing, but a dancing plague?
06:57That's the only way to describe the bizarre phenomenon that, for lack of a better word, plagued the city of Strasbourg in 1518.
07:04July, 1518. A normal day in the beautiful riverside city.
07:09Frau Traffia was reportedly the first person who took to the streets and broke out into dance.
07:14Over time, her solo act turned into an ensemble piece that ranged from 50 to 400 dancers.
07:20Some would supposedly dance themselves to death over the weeks, which turned into months.
07:25After consulting doctors and astronomers of the time, the nobles of Strasbourg announced that the mania was a natural disease,
07:32caused by hot blood, and ordered the workers to construct a giant stage for the dancers.
07:37What inspired this case of dance mania?
07:39Mass hysteria brought on by stress?
07:42Food poisoning from ergot fungi?
07:44We may never know for sure, but the only thing crazier than the story itself is the fact that it's not taught in more schools.
07:51No. 3. Yasuke the African Samurai
08:00In 1581, an Italian Jesuit missionary named Alessandro Villanano met with Oda Nabunaga, the first of Japan's three great unifiers.
08:11In Villanano's company was a black man whom the missionaries employed for protection.
08:15There was a lot of commotion surrounding his presence.
08:20At the time, you know, the average height of a Japanese man would have been five feet, two inches tall.
08:29He was well over six feet tall.
08:32Nabunaga was intrigued by the African man's skin color, initially convinced it was paint.
08:37Hitting it off, Nabunaga requested that the man join his service, giving him the Japanese name Yasuke.
08:43Nabunaga and Yasuke fought in many battles together for a period of about three and a half or four years.
08:52He not only stood out as a black samurai, but the first documented samurai who didn't originate from Japan.
08:59Following Nabunaga's death, Yasuke served his son and successor, Oda Nabutada.
09:04Yasuke was captured by the forces of Akichi Mitsuhide, the general who betrayed Nabunaga.
09:10The African samurai was spared, although what became of him after is a mystery.
09:15And what do they call you, the samurai that was once a servant?
09:20Yasuke.
09:22Number two, Project A-119.
09:25In the mid-20th century, the U.S. raced against the Soviet Union to reach the moon first.
09:30America fell behind its Cold War rival with the launch of Sputnik 1.
09:34And in comparison, the United States feared, was feared to be looking puny.
09:40While the U.S. retaliated with Explorer 1 shortly after, the Air Force was conceiving another plan to one-up the Soviet Union, nuke the moon.
09:49Dubbed Project A-119, the plan was to send a nuclear device to the moon, causing an explosion that could be seen from Earth.
09:56Surely this would lift the spirits of the American people, right?
09:59Are you suggesting that we blow up the moon?
10:03Would you miss it?
10:05Would you miss it?
10:06It was rumored that the Soviet Union had a similar operation in mind, planning to use a hydrogen bomb.
10:11Project A-119 was ultimately deemed too potentially hazardous, opting to put a man on the moon instead.
10:17Hello, Neil and Buzz.
10:19I'm talking to you by telephone from the over room at the White House.
10:23And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made.
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10:44Number 1.
10:45Undercover in Auschwitz
10:46Getting captured on purpose is a common trope in movies.
10:50For Polish officer Witold Pilecki, though, it was part of a real plan that sent him to one of human history's most dangerous and inhumane locales.
10:59Auschwitz.
11:00Why for you was it important to tell this man's story?
11:04Well, Witold Pilecki did the extraordinary.
11:07Pilecki agreed to infiltrate the infamous concentration camp, which had been established a few months earlier.
11:13Allowing himself to get arrested with about 2,000 others, he arrived at Auschwitz with a fake identity and formed a resistance.
11:20In the face of Mankin's greatest evil, he was able to stand up to it, create a network of fellow resistors, and defy the Nazis at the height of their power.
11:34Receiving help from inmates, Pilecki sent reports about the atrocities taking place to the home army.
11:40After nearly three years, Pilecki staged his escape with two fellow prisoners, eventually making it to a safe house.
11:47They go to the bakery, and they kill the alarm, they cut the wires, and then at night, when there is an opportunity, three of them try to simply open this massive metal door, and then they simply escape.
12:00Ironically, the house had belonged to Tomasz Serafinski, the name Pilecki used while undercover.
12:06What are some other crazy historical stories that not enough people talk about?
12:11Let us know in the comments.
12:13We didn't want to clutter up the natural radio activities of the moon.
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