u/Coffin_Builder

The straw hat riot was a bizarre wave of violence that swept NYC in September 1922. At the time there was a “rule” that stated one could only wear straw hats (or boater hats) between May 15th and September 15th, after which one could only wear felt hats. Starting September 13th, various youth gangs, armed with clubs and other makeshift weapons, began wandering the streets attacking anyone they saw wearing a boater hat, sometimes beating them up quite severely. These assaults would often become street brawls as the victims began fighting back. These assaults and street fights became very widespread over several days swamping the local police departments, who were unable to contain the situation. This wave of violence would ultimately contribute to the boater hat falling out of style.

Henry Gunther was originally a supply sergeant in the US army but was demoted to private after writing in a letter about how hellish life was in the trenches, something that was considered damaging to morale back home. This, plus his German heritage branded him a coward and started rumors of his being a German sympathizer. On November 11 at 10:58 AM literally two minutes before the armistice took effect, Gunther effectively committed suicide by singlehandedly charging a German machine gun nest in a last hurrah to prove his bravery and loyalty. Both his fellow soldiers and the German defenders yelled at him to stop as the war was almost over, but Gunther ignored them and when he started firing his rifle the Germans had no choice but to fire back, killing him at 10:59. He was the final fatality of WWI.

In 1983, KGO TV Channel 7 San Francisco ran a news special called Green Street Reds detailing Soviet influence and infiltrators in American society. To promote the special KGO ran an ad that showed a brief animated scene of Santa flying through a snowy town on Christmas Eve while upbeat carols played in the background. Over this was a narrator describing how the Soviets hated and wanted to change the American way of life, saying they’re “dreaming of a Red Christmas“. The ad ended with Santa’s slay being blown out of the sky by a Soviet missile. It was quickly pulled, after KGO received numerous angry calls from parents who’s kids were deeply upset by the ad.

When Black Sabbath dropped their self titled debut in 1970, it was lambasted by critics for being a “bad Cream impersonator“, as the slow, loud, dissonant sound and raw, unpolished performances baffled music critics who were used to more clean standard blues rock. To add to this, the album’s foreboding atmosphere, horror based imagery lyrical focus on occultism and grim state of the world clashed heavily with the upbeat, peace-and-love aesthetic of the hippy counterculture. Despite this, the album was commercially successful and BS quickly developed a fan base. Today the album is widely considered the first heavy metal and first doom metal album.

The chicks are packed! - The Warriors

While the Warriors fight their way back to Coney Island while being hunted by every gang in the city, Cochise, Rembrandt and Vermin come across an all female gang called the Lizzies who convince the trio to come back to their hideout to party. Only Rembrandt senses the set up while the other two mess around with the girls and the three are attacked and almost killed as a result.

We all fell for the same woman - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

While on his quest to find his father and the Holy Grail, Indiana is aided by Austrian archeologist Elsa Schneider who becomes his love interest early on before it’s revealed she had working for the Nazis all along and using him to find the grail.

From now on, all trash like you is gonna end up dead! - Dangerous Men

One of several incoherent plots in awful action movie, Mina, after being nearly SA’d and watching her finance murdered by thug Tiger, she immediately convinces her would be assaulter that she wants to sleep with him. They go a motel, where she stabs Tiger to death during foreplay.

You never were very smart - The Warriors (again)

While moving through Riverside Park, Swan, Ajax, Snow and Cowboy come across a woman randomly sitting in a park bench in the empty park in the middle of the night. Ajax wants to try and pick her up against Swan’s instructions to focus on getting to Coney Island. Ajax ignores him and begins flirting with the woman but when he gets too rough, she reveals herself to be a cop staging a honeypot trap. Ajax quickly gets arrested.

In last years of the Ancien Régime, the French economy was collapsing and famine was ravaging the country. Several times attempts were made to reform the tax system to address the financial crisis, as the commoner class paid the most taxes on everything while the nobility had numerous exemptions. The Parlements, consisting of the Noblesse de Robe, consistently blocked these attempts, arguing it would upend the traditional social structure. This of course would become one the biggest issues that would trigger the French Revolution.

The Vultus Trifrons, or Trifacial Trinity, was a bizarre type of Christian iconography that first appeared in the 12th century. It took the Holy Trinity and grotesquely depicted it as a singular figure (typically Jesus) with three faces merged together To symbolize the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one entity. This depiction would be banned by Urban VIII in 1628, as it was considered heretical, too reminiscent of pagan depiction of gods, and generally disturbing to look at.

In 1991, hobbyist programmer Albert Hernandez (along with help from a small group of amateur programmers) was tasked with designing 52 separate action games for an upcoming compilation with a painfully short three month deadline and only one week of training, leaving virtually no time for play testing or to iron out bugs. The result was Action 52; a collection of dull, shallow games that were not only boring but often unplayable due to game breaking bugs, constant crashing and regular soft locking. on top of that, on release the game was priced at $199, about $489 in 2026. It was panned ruthlessly and is now considered one of the worst video games of all time.

A prominent lord and knight, highly regarded for his acts in the Hundred Years War with Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais in 1440 was accused and convicted of raping and murdering numerous children after an investigation was launched into persistent rumors of children disappearing around his residences. De Rais would confess to having these children lured into his estates where he would rape, torture and murder them, sometimes through beheading or strangulation, mutilate the corpses for his own amusement and sometimes indulge in necrophilia afterwards, before having the bodies destroyed in furnaces and pits. It was also claimed he would keep the severed heads to admire and that the killings were part of a ritual to summon a demon named Barron. While the exact number of victims is unknown, the sentencing of the ecclesiastical court attributed “one hundred and forty children, or more”. De Rais was executed by burning and hanging on Oct 26, 1440.

Soviet soldiers returning from WWII were often seen with suspicion and faced discrimination. Liberated Soviet POWs were screened and interrogate, as Stalin believed that their survival in German camps was due to collaboration., resulting in hundreds of thousands being sent to the gulags. Even if they weren’t POWs, they were often regarded with suspicion, as they were believed to be possibly influenced by western propaganda and faced discrimination, surveillance and disrespect. Many, especially physically disabled veteran, would end up as beggars on the streets.

Japan and Poland had developed surprisingly warm relations due to their shared enemy in the Soviet Union and Japan’s admiration for the Polish fight for independence. When Poland declared war on Japm in 1941, they politely refused with Hideki Tojo saying:

“We do not accept Poland’s challenge. The Poles, fighting for their freedom, only declared war on us under pressure from the United Kingdom.”

Japan and Poland were technically at war for 16 years until the state of war was officially dissolved in 1957.