In Grisone's text on horse training, he states that if a horse refuses to go forward, one should attach a cat to a long pole in such a way that the cat has free use of its teeth and claws. One should then proceed to beat the horse in the flanks with the cat.

The defectiveness of American torpedoes at the start of WWII is pretty well-known: our torpedoes used a magnetic exploder that had been developed in the mid-20s (and kept completely secret) and not properly tested, and which failed nearly 100% of the time. Also, our torpedoes ran way too deep, as their depth-keeping had only ever been evaluated by reference to each torpedo's depth-measuring barometer, which was itself wildly inaccurate.

The backup contact exploders also failed when they struck the target ship at right angles (i.e. the preferred angle). My weird bit of trivia is that before the war, the design for the contact exploders was shown to Albert Einstein, who just from looking at the design pronounced it likely to be defective. He said that the friction produced by the mass of the torpedo on the exploder would cause it to jam and fail to fire - which is in fact what usually happened.

Bonus weird WWII torpedo trivia: the film actress Hedy Lamarr invented a homing device for torpedoes. No war bond drives for this actress!

At the time of the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia in the 16th century, the Portuguese chronicler Gaspar Correia tells a pretty unbelievable story of a navigator and cartographer Diogo Botelho, who regained the King of Portugal's favour by sailing all the way from India back to Europe in a craft not much larger than a lifeboat, just to deliver him a message personally... while being chased down by a warship because they thought he was trying to defect to another nation!

So a really fun little known story from Steve Coll's Ghost Wars:

In the very early 90's the US was looking for ways to finally break the stalemate in Afghanistan between the Russian-backed socialist regime of Najibullah and the US backed mujahideen. In particular, the US was looking for a way to get heavy weapons to these rebels. What they didn't want was anything with a big "Made in America" stamp on it, not least because the Russians were still actually supporting the regime in Kabul even after Soviet withdrawal in 1989. They found the solution when they realized that Kuwait, after Saddam Hussein's failed invasion, was basically one giant parking lot for abandoned, perfectly functioning Soviet T-55s and T-70s along with APCs and artillery.

The CIA with the help of the Saudis then set up a covert program to give Saddam's tanks to the Pakistanis, who were the primary channel for almost all covert arms and funding to the Afghan muj.

The problem was that even if the CIA was still trying to carry out it's policy in Afghanistan, the rest of Washington basically forgot that any of this was going on, let alone that Pakistan was a critical partner (albeit a not very friendly one) in that conflict. So, with bigger issues like Nuclear non-proliferation on the brain, the US congress passed the Pressler amendment which basically put in place sanctions against Pakistan unless Pakistan could prove that it didn't have a nuclear program. Obviously, we now know for a fact that they did, so the sanctions went up.

Someone, presumably a lawyer somewhere in Langley, worked out that the program to give Saddam's tanks to a nuclear non-compliant sanctions state probably violated US law. But not only that, but that they had to try to either get the tanks back or get receipts for their destruction. So the CIA diligently sent a team to Pakistan to explain to the military of that country that they had to destroy perfectly good tanks, that were given to Pakistan by the US and at US instigation in a covert program, taken from Saddam Hussein, because the US had passed a law that the CIA could be found in violation of if Pakistan didn't comply.

Needless to say, Pakistan kept the tanks.

Frederick Townsend Ward is the man for whom these kinds of threads were made. Born in Salem Massachusetts, Ward at first attempted a traditional military career; after failing to gain admission to West Point, he attended a private military college for a year before dropping out. He first cut his teeth in the business by serving under William Walker, a filibuster who overthrew the government in Nicaragua to establish his own government. Ward jumped ship before Walker took the country over and made himself president (and before he was arrested by the British and executed by the Hondurans), but when he heard there was a rebellion in China, he steamed over to raise an army to overthrow the government, because that always works so well. Once he got there, though, making contact with the Taiping rebels proved difficult, so he found work on the French steamer Confucius hired by the Imperials to protect Shanghai.

Working with the local city officials of Shanghai, he raised a small band of drunken sailors and deserters, often by unsavory means; men on shore leave would get knocked out on booze in port and wake up with a gun to their head. This army (if you can call 200 men an army, anyway) was completely illegal, of course, but having white men carrying guns in China held great value. After the First Opium War, the Chinese had an almost mythical belief in the power of western soldiers, so the banker Yang Fang of Shanghai and his associated merchants were willing to pay a hundred dollars a month for every man in Ward's ragtag band of drunkards, deserters, and ne'er-do-wells, and offered a hundred thousand dollars if they could take the nearby city of Songjiang.

Their first time assaulting the city, they tried to sneak up ladders at night, but they'd gotten so drunk beforehand that they woke up sleeping garrison, and were cut to pieces. Round 2, they bring 500 men (many of them Filipino) and wheel up cannons to blast the gate open, but they don't realize that there's a second gate. Once they blow a hole in that one (just wide enough for them to enter single file), and Ward manages to lose all but 27 of his men before taking the city. Ward is then shot in the face during an ill advised attempt to followup his victory by attacking Qingpu, and nearly loses Songjiang when the rebels' top general pursues him with 50,000 men, and his own foreign mercenary force.

Being as he was an absolute embarrassment to the Shanghai foreign community, harboring deserters, and blatantly violating international law, the British admiral, James Hope tried his damndest to arrest him, but the U.S. consulate had authority over him, but even that fell under suspicion when Ward claimed to now be a Chinese subject, having married a Chinese woman, with the documents to prove it. Documents dated ten days after his arrest. With no other options but to just hold him in the brig of the British flagship, from which he escaped by way of a open window. Jumping into the Yangtze, Ward was picked up by a waiting sampan, slipping back into the Shanghai underworld.

Escaping back to his base in Songjian, Ward prepared to assault Qingpu for the fifth time, this time with just sixty eight men. When a third of them were killed in the attempt, the foreign community of Shanghai breathed a sigh of relief, hoping the embarrassment was over. However, a rumor that Ward was now a privateer for the Confederate States of America breathed new life into his brand, and to counter this, the New York Herald produced one of the only letters of Ward's that to this day survives (where he expressed hopes that the secessionists would be beheaded); ashamed of his sordid history, Ward's family burnt most of his correspondence.

The outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, however, helped shift perception of Ward; with an end to the Chinese civil war necessary now that Lincoln's blockade had put the U.S. South off limits as a market, Ward's Chinese-but-not-really army, by 1862 reorganized with Chinese privates and white officers, began to look more attractive. By 1862, he had two loyal lieutenants; one Maine whaler who'd been stranded in Japan after a mutiny, and Henry Burgevine, a Crimean War veteran and the son of a French Napoleonic officer. Careers prior to his mercenary work included newspaper editor, postal clerk, and paige in the U.S. Senate. After Charles Gordon succeeded Ward as leader of the army, Burgevine would switch sides, and tried to get Gordon to join him in a bid to conquer all of China for their own private kingdom.

At the suggestion of the acting governor of the province, the army was named the Ever Victorious Army [misleading, considering their record], and his patron, Yang Fang offered his daughter to Ward in marriage [not that great a prize; her fiance had died during their engagement, meaning she was both previously taken, without even the status of a widow]. With the British inching ever closer to war with the Taiping, the same Admiral Hope who'd arrested Ward last year started writing about him in glowing terms, mentioning how he's come to rely on his extensive experience with the Chinese, and Frederick Bruce, the commissioner in Shanghai, believed that Ward's force was the only hope for China.

Working together with the British and French, Ward's militia finally stormed Qingpu, though half Ward's army was massacred after the rebels put the town under siege and the relief attempt failed. Things got worse for Ward at Ningbo, where he was shot in the stomach in September 1862. His last words were a demand for money, because of course they were. He claimed the Shanghai city official and his father in law owed him about $200,000, a claim his family would press for decades. At first, the captain charged with transporting Ward's body back to the states refused, being a passive-aggressive Confederate with a resentment of the Unionist 'general', but eventually he did, without refueling before heading downriver. When coal ran out, the crew stripped the upper decks of any wood to fuel the boiler. When that ran out, they loaded fifty barrels of pork into the boiler, and the steamship bearing China's great foreign hero limped down the river.

Reign of Terror hijinks!

A group of nuns were put on trial in Paris. It was a very solemn affair until one of the accused accidentally called the judge "father".

One a less funny note, a woman was sentenced to death the summer of 1794. She claimed that she was pregnant and was granted a stay of execution. The next day, she wrote a letter to the prosecutor and admitted that she had lied about the pregnancy. She only wanted to be able to cut off her own hair so she could have it sent to her children, and wasn't lying to prolong her life. She was executed the same day. The next day, the Terror ended.

Fouquier-Tinville, the prosecutor of the revolutionary tribunal, found out one day that he was about to be arrested. He decided that it had to be some kind of misunderstanding, so he went downstairs to the prison to turn himself in. The prison didn't know anything about any arrest, and sent him to the National Convention to ask around. Meanwhile, people show up at his house to take him away. His wife explains that he had gone to the prison on his own, and they detain her for obviously lying. He was eventually arrested, and then executed. Misplaced faith in the justice system was actually a lot more common than you would think.

One time, Fouquier had to make a complaint to the National Convention, because they wanted him to prosecute a group of people that included everyone who could actually make the trial happen.

The Committee of Public Safety once had to step in because Fouquier wanted to remodel the court room so he could put 200 people on trial at the same time.

And then there's the trial of Danton and others, which has better dialogue than any fictionalized version:

Westermann (a former general): I suggest that I take all of my clothes off in front of the people, so they can see me. I have received seven injuries, all to the front. I have only received one from behind: my act of accusation.

Danton: I've been bought? A man of my quality is priceless!

Danton: Me a conspirator? I fuck my wife all day. My name is supported by all revolutionary institutions: levée, revolutionary armies, revolutionary committees, the committee of public safety, revolutionary tribunal. I'm the one who's killing me, really, and I'm a moderate!

I'm not sure if it really fits here. I might think it of very strange because it happened not far from where I was born and I know the place quite well.

In 1624, Father Philibert Deleneault, the priest of a small village in the Morvan region in France ( a very strange but beautiful location ) was hung then burned. Why ?

Following a denunciation, the priest was arrested and accused of " crimes, sorcery and practice of magic ". Of course he was tortured ( and he admitted ! ) then executed. The Father actually had a lot of facts against him ! First he had several children ( maybe 6 or 7 ), from different women. A priest having children ? It must have been the women who were witches and seduced him !? Errr ... he also was the own of an inn, and not the shiny type of inn...

A priest innkeeper and fathering children around ? It was already a lot of things against him and he did not defend himself well during his trial ( except when he accused other priests of wrong doings). He admitted having made a pact with the devil and being acquainted with " demons of the male and female appearances " who "worshipped the Devil under his form of a male goat" being " f*ed in the behind " ( it's literally what the trial report says, I hope it's a good translation but I don't dare googling that to check ).

Well, here is the story of Father Deleneault. Of course many of parts of the event can be explained by the time period ( counter-reformation,...Etc ) but the various occupations of the priest ( the inn and children ) have been verified by historians.

Quite a life !

I have a bunch. Off the top of my head: When the house of Savoy was granted the island of Sardinia so that they could claim a Royal Title, the court couldn't decide if they should go to Cagliari for a coronation ceremony. Why? The title of King of Sardinia had been extinct for so long no one could be entirely sure how the ceremony was performed.

After the war of Spanish Succession, the House of Savoy had originally been given the more fertile and densely populated island Sicily. Very pleased with this, King Victor Amadeus II and the court moved to Palermo for about a year. However, the Peace of Utreict in 1720 returned Sicily to Spain, giving the Savoyards the Island of Sardinia, which was also technically a kingdom, instead.

The coronation of the King of Sicily was one of the four in Europe that called for the use of Sacred Oils (apparently a big deal). Because no equally cool ceremony could be discovered for Sardinia, the Savoyards never even set foot in Sardinia until Napoleon forced them to flee Piedmont in 1798. They had ruled the island for 78 years.

I could also go on about political polarization of organized football supporter groups in Italy.

In Iron Age Yorkshire (pre-Roman Britain), the Arras culture carefully and lovingly buried their dead under barrows next to trackways, sending them off on a journey to the next life. Some were buried in chariots with massive iron-rimmed wheels to carry them into the next world.

After laying out a body, the community would often gather around the graveside and throw spears at the corpse until it was pincushioned with weapons. Some corpses had a dozen spears thrown through their bodies.

The dead were encouraged not to linger.

More:

• Giles 2013.

• Stead (free download from the ADS).