During WWII, a U.S. naval destroyer won a battle against a Japanese submarine by throwing potatoes at them. The Japanese thought they were grenades.
100 Mind-Blowing Battle Facts
More civilians died in the Battle of Stalingrad than in the nuclear atrocities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Brad Pitt suffered an ironic injury on a film set. In Troy, based on Homer’s Illiad, Pitt plays the brave (and buff) Greek hero Achilles. Legend has it that Achilles could not be defeated unless hit in his heel. (It’s where we get the term “Achilles’ heel,” meaning a vulnerable point.) While filming an epic battle scene, Pitt ironically hurt his Achilles tendon—an injury that set back the film’s production by two months.
British military tanks are equipped to make tea. There’s a boiling vessel inside so the crew can make tea and coffee anytime—including during battle. How frightfully English.
Flyting was the original rap battle. Way before flip-top and rap battles, there was “flyting”: the artful exchange of witty, insulting lines. Flyting was popular in the 5th to 16th century England and Scotland.
Brad Pitt injured his Achilles heel while playing Achilles. In the historic hit Troy, Pitt played the Greek hero Achilles. However, he might have gone too deep in character: he injured his Achilles heel tendon during a battle scene, which took 2 months for him to recover from.
The boss in Metal Gear Solid 3 takes a week to beat. The player can either defeat them by not playing for one week or simply by changing the date on the console. Battle the boss as you would normally until it is almost beaten after that quit the game and change the date one or two weeks later.
Antonio López de Santa Anna held a state funeral for his leg after it was amputated. After being injured in battle, Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna buried his amputated leg with full military honours. Before you go all the WTF facts on us: It was a part of him, guys.
A solar eclipse once ended a six-year war. In 585 BCE, the sky suddenly darkened during a battle between the Lydians and the Medes. The soldiers saw it as a sign to stop fighting.
In Welsh folklore, corgis carried fairies. According to a Welsh legend, a pair of corgis tow the carts and carriages of fairies and help them ride into battle. Epic corgis = WTF facts.
In a statue dedicated to a person, if the horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
Japanese superstitions. Before battle, Japanese samurai painted their faces, horses and teeth, and left a hole in their helmet through which the soul could escape.
Handy brandy. Rather than bury Nelson’s corpse at sea after his death at the Battle of Trafalgar, it was preserved in a cask of brandy stored in the hold of HMS Victory for a London burial.
Havoc! One of the few known medieval battlefield orders is the cry of ‘Havoc!’. Havoc released the army from any formation and gave freedom to loot, and was an order only ever to be given when it was utterly certain that a battle was won and discipline was no longer required. It was considered so dangerous that it was expressly forbidden without permission from the army’s commander. A wrongly timed cry of havoc could cost a battle and there were severe punishments for crying havoc without permission – sometimes extending to beheading.
No Antivirus is 100% Safe for All Kinds of Malware. Regardless of their high efficiency, no antivirus has been able to detect and battle all forms of malware.
The Rivalry Between Microsoft and Linux: Microsoft waged war against Linux in the early 2000s seeking to stop its spread and usage. It incurred a staggering $421 million in the process. Nowadays, the two operating systems are no longer locked in battle, and in fact, there’s been more collaboration between the two in recent years.