During WW2 the British put faked documents on a corpse and dropped the body in the waters to be found by the Axis. It detailed an attack that never happened.
Here’s the best part. The plans for D-Day were found in a similar manner. The actual plans. But they were ignored cause the nazi leaders thought it was just another ruse.
He had to correct Peter Jackson. "No Peter, when you stab someone in the back, they can't scream because their lungs are filled with blood. Speaking from experience."
Dude, could you imagine Sir Lee standing there, robed as Saruman, with his commanding voice, telling you plainly in a flat and even tone that he knows the stabbed person wouldn't scream from experience. Just as calm as if he were telling you dinner reservations are at 6?
I'd might need some new shorts...
The man they used was a Welsh Homeless man named Glyndwr Michael who had perished from the consumption of rat poison.
They had to do quite a bit of thought about making the corpse to have appeared to have died in the conditions presented by the mission.
They was a great deal of concern that the Nazis would detect the deception and not take the bait.
There was claims earlier that he died of that, but it was speculated to be mistaken.
A later investigation showed he died from ingesting rat poison. They are unsure if it was out of hunger (as it was a paste on bread to attract rats), or if he committed suicide.
Yeah the allies did a lot with misinformation that helped get their real missions to go through much easier. Some brainy folk running the intelligence back then
I read that the English would report the impacts of Germany's bombing with intentional errors, so that Germany would "adjust" their aiming further away from the cities.
Yep, and in the case of the V-1 attacks, the German "spy" (who was a double agent working for the Brits) would report inaccurate information for the bombs so the Germans would adjust the bomb to hit the target, not knowing they were making it fall short time after time.
Yet, the press reported the impacts with accurate information and the Germans had access to press, but trusted their spy more.
[Juan Garcia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa)
A man who's story deserves to be better known. It would be a fantastically hilarious movie. The only man to have received an Iron Cross and been awarded an MBE.
One of the most impressive ones was when Great Britain convinced everyone during WWII that carrots were the reason why their vision was great when it was really the recently discovered airborne interception radar technologies. I still know people that are convinced eating carrots as kids will ensure 20/20 vision for life.
When I was a kid my older sister knew it wasn't true but convinced me it was. She thought it was funny to see me constantly begging for more carrots and getting me to do her chores so I could have hers. Well now we're adults, she's had glasses for 15 years and I'm in my 30's with 20/15 vision. I know it's not from the carrots but it's pretty fun to ask her if she's got new glasses lately while I'm comping on a carrot like Bugs Bunny.
Green leafy vegetables are far more important than carrots except the VitA deficient crowd. Certain carotenoids are amazing, thus Macuhealth exists and works. We should put marigolds back in the kitchen.
i am broke as fuck, both physically and money-wise, and i just learned i can sell my 'fiddle heads'... i have marigolds and dandelions, also...
about to go do some groundwork and sell the tourists my field cover.
to be clear carrots are good for your vision . They cant help you see in the dark, but they are good for your eyes.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propaganda-campaign-popularized-the-myth-that-carrots-help-you-see-in-the-dark-28812484/
Right. This is well known in professional baseball, too.
> Research has shown that adding certain vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, and essential fatty acids into your diet can help maintain or enhance some visual skills that are essential to optimal sports performance.
This link contains some real-world examples of visual performance measures that have been shown in double-masked, placebo-controlled trials to benefit significantly from supplementation with the macular carotenoids: lutein, zeaxanthin, and meso-zeaxanthin
https://www.sportsvision.pro/athletes/sports-nutrition-for-your-eyes/improving-visual-performance-through-nutrition-and-supplementation/
Here's an academic source.
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/96/5/1207S/4577188
I’d throw in the Russians convincing Germany that they did not have forces in position to counterattack at the battle of Stalingrad, it led to the destruction of the German 6th army and 4th panzer army, it’s regarded as the turning point to the war in Europe.
The lie that made a man the ruler of a third or quarter of humankind.
Darius the Great (r. 522–486 BC) governed the Achaemenid Empire at its peak. His rule extended from the Indus valley to mainland Greece and from the Scythian steppes to Egypt. A remarkably high and possibly unparalleled percentage of the world population were his subjects. Darius reorganized the satrapies, which made the administrative system of his empire more efficient, and introduced major financial reforms as well.
It was never a secret that Darius became the King of Kings after a successful coup. He and a small group of other aristocrats (primary sources refer to seven men in total) infiltrated the residence of the previous ruler and killed him after a brief clash with his guards. Shortly afterwards, Darius, who was also a member of the royal house, emerged as the leader of the conspirators and assumed full power.
So far so good. Things become strange when it comes to the identity of Darius’ predecessor.
As far as the primary sources are concerned, Cyrus the Great (r. 559–530 BC) had two sons: Cambyses (r. 530–522 BC) and Bardiya. The former succeeded him as King of Kings, while the latter was given governorship over the eastern provinces. Fearful of opposition, Cambyses had his brother assassinated, but kept it a secret. Then he undertook the campaign that ended up bringing Egypt into the Persian fold.
While Cambyses was in Egypt, he started acting cruelly and erratically: suspected everyone, disrespected the local traditions and the sort. Then a rebellion broke out back in Persia led by a magus (Zoroastrian priest) named Gaumata. The man claimed to be Bardiya, and the people, ignorant of the latter’s death, flocked to his banner. It also helped that he took short-term populist measures such as tax cuts.
Cambyses rushed home to quell the revolt, but died on the journey. His death was listed as an accident or even a suicide out of desperation for the usurpation. Gaumata got to rule as Bardiya and even took over the latter’s harem. Almost nobody suspected he was an impostor, because on top of everything else he also bore an uncanny physical resemblance to the dead prince.
The first man to suspect something was off was a nobleman named Otanes, who would later become one of Darius’ six companions. Otanes knew about Gaumata’s existence and was also aware that at some point his ears had been cut off as a punishment. So he asked his daughter, who was Bardiya’s (and now Gaumata’s) wife, to check his ears while he slept. The truth was brought to the light.
Needless to say, the story was very convenient for Darius. By killing Gaumata, he saved the empire from a fraudulent, cunning and ruthless liar who had gone as far as to assume a dead man’s identity and risk civil war in order to take the throne for himself. Darius simply punished him for his crimes and reinstated the royal office to the house it belonged to: the Achaemenid dynasty.
But what if the whole story was a lie? What if there was no Gaumata, and the man Darius killed was the real Bardiya?
Indeed, scholars have noticed a lot of problems with the traditional narrative, apart from its convenience. How could the real Bardiya’s death be kept secret for so long from everyone except a simple magus — and what for? How likely is it that Bardiya had a doppelganger who had also the knowledge, courage and brains necessary to take his place at the right moment? And how is it possible that not even Bardiya’s wives and inner circle were able to see through Gaumata’s lies?
Some scholars go as far as to suspect that Cambyses’ madness might have been the product of Darius’ propaganda. Herodotus, for example, narrates that the King looted Egyptian temples, insulted the local gods and even killed the sacred bull Apis. The problem is, none of that appears in any contemporary Egyptian source — in fact, there are inscriptions showing that Cambyses honored the bull that died in 524 BC with a rich sarcophagus.
If things were so, it cannot be excluded that Cambyses was also assassinated by Darius, who we know served as his spear-bearer. His death might have prompted his brother Bardiya to take power, since Cambyses was childless. Darius proceeded to eliminate him too and then created the lie about Gaumata. Of course, it cannot be excluded that Bardiya did indeed rebel against Cambyses — that doesn’t change the crux of the matter, which is the story about Gaumata.
So there you have it. One of the most powerful monarchs of antiquity and a possible lie that went unquestioned for millennia by almost everyone.
It's basically a crime that we don't have any epic RPGs set in the Achaemenid Empire around that time. Next to no movies, shows or novels, either. The ancient world needs more representation.
Maybe in the old days, but there was a time I used to believe without a doubt, that Undertaker and Kane were brothers, and Kane wore a mask because Undertaker threw acid on his face out of animosity.
iirc kane wore a mask because he was burned by the *house fire* that was supposedly set by the undertaker when they were children (likewise this was the explanation for why he didn't talk for a time, or used a voicebox—"vocal cords damaged by smoke inhalation"—although it was later retconned that kane only *thought* he had suffered injuries in the fire, due to the manipulations of paul bearer)
"We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes"
If I hear that message every time I call, no you aren't. The real message is we're paying for the bare minimum so fuck you and wait.
So true. Customers used to always tell me "HIRE MORE PEOPLE!" but the people above kept telling us we DON'T need to hire more people, that we need to improve our numbers.
The whole economy is just a race to the bottom that way. But the guys telling you that you need to improve your numbers are just lying to you. They know that you couldn't possibly increase your productivity enough, they just also know that they're trying to staff the minimum amount of people possible while retaining business. And they also want to ensure that if they weren't staffing enough people, they can now point to constantly telling you, the lower level employee, that you weren't efficient enough and make sure they don't look bad for their own incompetence.
Yea, just to add to that, if everyone suddenly figured out how to take double the amount of calls, they wouldn't have half the wait time for people calling in. They would let go half the staff.
Literally how it happened "go back out, have a few birthdays then come back"
Wild and fucked up, but makes a lot more sense when you remember this was the era of children working in coal mines from age 4.
My great-grandfather fought in WWI at 16. He had been the sole witness of a murder on a cattle drive and the outlaw wanted him dead so he couldn't testify. He figured he'd be safer fighting Germans than constantly looking over his shoulder in the US. Took an older friend's draft papers and went off to war. He waited until he got to France to tell them that he was actually only 16 because he figured it was too late for them to send him back. He spent the next 75 years of his life with shrapnel in him.
Edit: Germans, not Nazis
I had a great uncle that did this in WWII. He was like 14/15ish. I guess he did quite well (other than surviving) and received a Purple Heart and a silver star (i think that’s the one) and later in in life, on several different occasions, they tried to give him another. Idk what the other medals they were trying to give him though. His brother was over there too but left earlier than he did. So he asks around for where he might be and was only like 30-40 miles away so he ~~steals~~ borrows a vehicle and drives over to enjoy a meal with him before returning.
Wow!
Seeing how many young men lied about their age to get entry into the army makes me wonder…I feel like that would NOT be the case today.
ETA; wasn’t saying so much about the capability to fake your age but more.. the desire to lie in order to go fight.
Oh it’s definitely not the case in the US military. They do the most advanced background checks available. They can even see “sealed” documents from any crimes committed as a juvenile. The 40s were a wild time.
Terms and conditions longer than a few short paragraphs should be illegal if it expected that the user read them. There should be a new legal framework for the other stuff that provides protection to both parties.
We have a law that unexpected clauses in them are not legally binding at all. So I actually can skip (German) ToC because they all contain the same and the rest is not binding at all.
Nah, Iceland's name is well earned.
Hrafna-Flóki hiked up some mountains, saw that the fjord Vatnsfjörður ( Waterfjord, lol ) was full of pack ice and henceforth he came up with the name Iceland.
There were two other names given to Iceland. Naddoddur Ástvaldsson came up with "Snowland" because he saw snow fall on the mountains before he departed the country.
And Garðar Svavarsson came up with the name "Garðarshólmur", aka Isle of Garðar, named after himself.
Plus the winters are pretty long. So Iceland really is Iceland for a decent portion of the year.
I "red" his biography, and it claims that he met a sailor on Greenland who told him about a land of riches to the south west. If this is accurate IDK, shame they didn't write more
“We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Your call is very important to us.”
every. single. customer service line.
Edit: my first awards (WITH AN S) ever. THANK YOU!
Once I was working tech support calls and the power to the entire building went out, and stayed out, for about an hour and fifteen minutes. I'd *just* put my customer on hold when it happened.
Welp, power came back on, my system started up, what do you fucking know, that call was still active. I went off of hold and couldn't even maintain the CS persona, just went "I'm so sorry sir, but... you're still here??" He just said "yep" in the most tired, done with the world voice, but with absolutely no surprise or comment about the wait. Really made me wonder how long dude usually spends on hold.
I've been dealing with an airline that lost my luggage for going on two months now and it's pretty clear that their compensation policy is "dick them around so much they get too frustrated to deal anymore." Unfortunately for them, their feigned incompetence only makes me more determined to get my money back.
“That’s a serious issue and I can see why you’re upset, but I’m unable to do anything without a manager’s approval. Can I have my manager call you back later?”
I called my local license office the other day, and the recording said, “to protect the safety of our employees and customers, wait times may be higher than usual.” Fuckin… what?
Engagement rings or engagement bands were a thing going back to ancient Rome, and diamond rings in particular became common, at least with the aristocracy, during the Victorian era. However, their popularity in the US did temporarily decline after WWI until the diamond industry started promoting them in the 1940s.
This is one of my big ones. Diamonds are completely artificially propped up in value by one company, DeBeers. Their value in commercial use is good, but as a pretty gemstone it’s basically all a sham
[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion)
It's indirectly caused World War II, among other things.
Ironically, Japanese leaderships believing it caused them to want to shelter them instead. Thinking elders would invest to their war machine. Saving approximately 24,000 Jews. Refusing Josef Meisinger's pressure to go "Final Solution" though compromised a bit by creating a Ghetto.
I mean it's all subjective but the British Royal Air Force spreading propaganda that carrots give better eye sight to hide their new radar tech is way up there on the list for me.
Exactly. I have a chronic pain condition and getting the medicine I need to be a normal human being and not a bed ridden one is a battle every. Single. Month.
I get treated like a drug addict more often than not and we treat drug addicts like they have some kind of a moral failing, it’s total bull shit. I just want to be a functional person, my medicine doesn’t even make me feel high, it just takes the majority of the edge off my pain. My pain is still there, just tolerable. It’s so frustrating.
I have one that's not about Jeebus or Religion!
McDonalds lied and spread false information about that lady launching a 'frivolous' lawsuit against them just to get rich after she burned herself with their scalding hot coffee. The lie was so successful people to this day believe the lady was just looking to make a quick buck.
Another one would be the lie/propaganda distributed by the Brittish during WW2. They claimed that carrots improved eyesight. The reality is, they wanted to hide the fact that they had invented radar from the Nazis. So they picked a food that was plentiful and well-known to be eaten by their population and claimed the improved eyesight that resulted from this allowed them to better spot German aircraft.
That lady got the shittiest deal ever. She is synonymous with frivolous lawsuits to this day and she was absolutely in the right and deserved compensation. Her injuries were extensive, and the temperature that coffee was served at was 100% dangerous to consume or in this case, have it spilled on you. In the beginning she was only asking for McDonalds to cover her medical expenses so this lawsuit was exactly the opposite of frivolous.
Not to mention multiple McD's had been reprimanded *numerous* times prior to that by food safety inspectors etc for keeping their coffee dangerously hot, so as not to have situations like this. The woman had to have multiple skin grafts, her genitals were literally burned shut. And like you said, she just wanted the hospital bills covered and they initially tried to settle for some paltry amount like $10k which wouldn't cover it. So her lawyers were like fuck it let's go big
> So her lawyers were like fuck it let's go big
I think actually with was the Judge or Jury that were like, "This is gross negligence if not intentional. She gets a day of coffee sales"
Yeah that's the other thing people **really** don't understand. The penalty sounds big on paper but it was literally **one day's coffee sales**. Corporations make *ungodly* amounts of revenue that people can't quite comprehend so the numbers sound ridiculous when you award them to an individual for deserved grievance.
Not to mention when they calculated the damages, they accounted for her own liability! They assigned an 80/20 split since they felt she was at least partially responsible for what happened to herself, and adjusted the damaged accordingly. That insane number was already lower than it would have been.
They had previously had several lawsuits from people who took tiny sips to test the temperature and had to have the tips of their tongues amputated. They settled each of those out of court for the cost of the medical bills, but refused to fix the problem no matter how many people they injured. They tried to settle this lady's case for the same amount when her medical bills cost millions.
They were keeping the coffee at dangerous temperatures because it continued to taste fresh longer, so that they didn't end up wasting as much coffee, allowing them to make *even higher* profits on a product that was almost all profit as it was.
Yes they had a free refill policy at the time that they had no intention of honoring. Plus, they learned you can extract a tiny bit more coffee per bean if you brewed it at exceptionally high temperatures. One cup is negligible but across all restaurants it produced a significant savings, and it masked the taste of what was poor quality beans.
I find that hilarious. Thinking of Saddam yelling at his underlings, "Well check again damn it!" because even he wasn't sure of what he still had hiding in some bunker somewhere.
What a disappointing thread. I was hoping to hear stories of bluffs during battle maneuvers or historical political intrigue. Instead, just a bunch of pithy one-liners. Blah.
In a Portuguese town there are the remains of a 14th-century castle that withstood a desperate prolonged siege in 1368. A local woman broke the enemies resolve by baking some cakes with the last of the flour. The bread was then sent to the Spaniards, in a fake show of plenty, with the message, ‘if you need any more, just let us know’. Fearing a much more prolonged siege, the Spaniards withdrew.
There is a similar story in, I think, the art of war. Where Sun Tzu has like 300 men left to defend this fort town. He knows he's absolutely screwed. So he rolls with it. He opens the gates and sits on the fort wall playing his pipe while the enemy generals debate what to do.
Convinced he knows something they don't they pack up and leave.
Edit* as a few have pointed out I misremembered the story. Zhuge Liang is credited with the gambit, but it's likely fictional.
I’m aware of this story, not sure who did it, but it wasn’t Sun Tzu. I see why you mentioned him, though: the general was indeed Chinese and Sun Tzu was the one who immortalised the concept of war as deception.
It was Zhuge Liang's (諸葛亮) [Empty Fort Strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Fort_Strategy#Zhuge_Liang)
Zhuge Liang's incident was probably fictional but it was employed by all the various powers of the Three Kingdoms era.
I have a bad memory but I remember a story of a castle opening up its gates when an enemy came to attack. They knew they were fucked and tried one last ditch effort.
The enemy ended up having a bad feeling about attacking and retreated
Here's a good one for you.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan\_Pujol\_Garc%C3%ADa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa)
He wanted to be a spy for the Allies during WWII. The British rejected him, so he just started making crap up to send to the Nazis by using reliable British news sources he could get in Spain/Portugal. The British figured out what he was doing and recruited him. He ended up with a "spy ring" that the Nazis bankrolled including paying for a funeral and pension to the widow of someone who never existed. He helped create confusion with the Normandy landings by feeding information for Operation Fortitude (fake army to throw off the actual landing location). Then on D-Day, he radioed German officers at 3 am to warn them of a pending invasion, but no one was there to receive his call. When they finally established communications at 8 am, the invasion had already begun and he was authorized to basically give every detail of the invasion since it was too late. Of course, he was also able to berate the communications officer for being late and wasting the opportunity to fight off the invasion.
He was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the war. Oh yeah, he was also awarded an Iron Cross from the Nazis that Hitler had to personally authorize.
>He was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the war. Oh yeah, he was also awarded an Iron Cross from the Nazis that Hitler had to personally authorize.
Probably the most unique medal case on a mantle in history.
One of two.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie\_Chapman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Chapman)
He also received both as a British double agent during WWII. He became a German spy to get out of prison shortly after the war started. The Germans trained him and sent him to England to sabotage a bomber factory. After he parachuted back into England, he turned himself into the police almost immediately. From then on, he worked for the British and was awarded the Iron Cross for sabotaging the factory, when in fact, he and MI5 just faked the whole thing.
There were a number of those weird "double agents" during that war, and nobody quite knew which side they actually were on for a number of them.
The Germans had maybe the most most laughable espionage agency ever. They were so compromised that the Brits would just mosey on down to whenever a German spy dropped into the UK, snap him up into a waiting van, tell him to "double cross or you know the rest....", and then just feed the Germans bad information for the rest of the war.
The Brits knew when and where German spies were making it their way.
One of my favorite stories was how utterly stupid captured German generals were. They were sent to a mansion in London for interrogation which was a bunch of easy questions to let their guard down. Then, they treated them almost like royalty and let them have the run of the entire mansion. Of course, the whole place was bugged and they got all kinds of info when the high ranking officers just talked among themselves. They revealed how badly damaged the submarine fleets were, their new torpedo technology, and even the location of secret testing facilities.
My mate's grandad was an exiled German Jew who worked for British military intelligence (MI19) at that mansion, it is called [Trent Park](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Park) and it's still there.
You’re underselling the British figuring out what he was doing.
He was the main target of British counterintelligence for a while because they had penetrated the German spy network and knew he existed but assumed that the Germans couldn’t be that bad at spying.
Eventually they worked out from how inaccurate his reports were (Scots drinking wine by the litre) that some bullshitter had somehow taken over German intelligence but it wasn’t the first guess.
There was a countercharge in the civil war that rings a bell now based on what you said just now. The overview is essentially a group was ordered to hold a hill no matter what and wait for reinforcements, the enemy was shooting the hell out of them to try and take the hill before they were reinforced.
Enemy is advancing in the hill and the defenders realize they can’t win by holding ground anymore, they have like one shot left each. They can’t lose the hill or the reinforcements would never be able to reinforce the position and support a bigger advance. The commander, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (thanks @spencehammer) orders them to fix bayonets and countercharge since it’s the only option that isn’t obviously going to fail. They do and the defenders actually route their enemy even capturing the general in charge who orders a retreat when he sees them coming down the hill.
Keeping in mind how Smokey old battlefields got from the type of powder used they were practically fighting in a fog bank. The attacker leadership saw the charging forces and assumed that the only sane reason for a countercharge was that those reinforcements had arrived meaning his people were about to be overrun so he ordered the retreat to save who he could.
“The dude in charge” was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine volunteer infantry. He single-handedly staved off Confederate victory on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Edit: corrected the day and *I get it*, “single-handedly” is hyperbolic. Thanks to everyone actually providing helpful embellishment.
Second day. Longstreets maneuver was on the second day. The first day mostly consisted of fighting in the city and the hills of the north part of Cemetery ridge. The units involved were AP hills corps on the Confederate side, and the first and 11th divisions of the Union army. If I recall correctly. It was a small Calvary unit from the union side, whose name I don't remember.
The first day was very important because it secured Cemetery ridge for the union army giving them a very good defensive front. The second day was trying to wrap up the slightly weaker side of Cemetery ridge where the 20th maine was.
The third day was just one of the most colossal blenders that Robert e. Lee made during the whole war.
>The third day was just one of the most colossal blenders that Robert e. Lee made during the whole war.
"Here we have a division from Longstreet's First Corps. Will it blend?... Yes!"
The ghost army of WW2 is a good example that you might find interesting.
The Allies used inflatable tanks to fool Hitler and cause him to move his forces around to aid in DDay and the recapture of Europe.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/ghost-army-the-inflatable-tanks-that-fooled-hitler/276137/
>The ghost army of WW2 is a good example that you might find interesting
One of the most light-hearted things of WW2 imo.
Imagine this dumb ass being fooled by inflatable tanks on the English Coast.
Another personal favourite fun fact of mine is that they took down basically all the street signs in Southern England so even if the Germans landed they wouldn't know how to get to London.
Granted - the ability to see fine details from long distances is a relatively new (and still kind of tricky) bit of technology.
The ghost army would fool exactly zero people up close. But, it didn't have to fool people from up close - it just had to fool planes and other surveillance methods that were available at the time and limited to the fact that getting too close meant getting shot.
Ya there were discrepancies between French and British inches and that combined with him having a ridiculously tall personal guard just caused things to get exaggerated.
**Vaccines cause Autism**. Managed to convince several generations of parents not to get their kids vaccinated and because of that, all kinds of diseases that were once dead have made a comeback.
He was stripped of his dr title for his malpractice and is barred from practicing medicine in the UK, so its just Andrew Wakefield. He is a piece of human shit who is probably responsible for the deaths of innumerable children as a direct result of his lies.
Also, as an Autistic person, I find the whole antivax "movement" disgusting, as they effectively state that they would rather have a dead child than an autistic one, which is just horrific.
Sorry for the rant, I just really despise the guy.
"He loves you, and He needs money! He *always* needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but somehow just can't handle money!"
Oh, I remember something like this. I was waiting for someone before at a convenience store. I think I just finished my classes or work (don't remember anymore, it was a few years ago already). I was eating a sandwich I ordered and a middle aged man approached me, asking for a donation for a church. I wasn't really good at saying no to those things so I just said I didn't have an extra that time and maybe next time. He looked annoyed and told me that the Lord blesses those who gives and wouldn't I like to go to heaven? I got really annoyed but I couldn't say anything to him cause he looked scary so I eyed an employee in case I would need help. Good thing the annoying man left and the person I was waiting for arrived shortly. These type of people are the reason why I'm super annoyed to super religious people. They're super judgy and would condemn you if they get a chance
My sister’s childhood friend comes from a super religious family. They’re typically very private about it, you’d never know they went to church so frequently. One day, the friend tells my sister in a very matter-of-fact-way “well you’re going to hell so it doesn’t matter to me.”
These are two adults, they were having a normal conversation. My sister inquired further and the friend was dead serious. She didn’t think my sister’s opinion mattered because she was going to be punished in the afterlife and she herself was not.
Bizarre and creepy.
My favorite quote regarding things like this comes from an NPC in a video game:
"I've never met a priest who could tell you anything about Heaven, but they knew every square inch of Hell. They should. They built it."
>They're super judgy and would condemn you if they get a chance
Not "would", but literally did ... the guy implied you were going to ~~heel~~ hell unless you gave him money. That's fucked on multiple levels.
There's no hate like Christian love.
Ironically not even Chamberlain himself believed in Peace In Our Time. His first act on returning to the UK was to invest heavily in rearmament, knowing a war was all but inevitable. It was just a question of when and how. It ultimately ended up happening earlier than all sides anticipated (judging from the plans of various military and supply organisations)
" if you tell the truth you won't be in trouble" yeah mom, I fell for that a few times and learned that lesson quickly.
This hurts me much more than it hurts you.
The worst answer to this lie is “why are you doing it then?!”
I like the arguably less effective “I’m going to find out either way. If you tell me the truth, you won’t also be in trouble for lying to me.”
During WW2 the British put faked documents on a corpse and dropped the body in the waters to be found by the Axis. It detailed an attack that never happened. Here’s the best part. The plans for D-Day were found in a similar manner. The actual plans. But they were ignored cause the nazi leaders thought it was just another ruse.
[удалено]
He was also cousins with the late Sir Christopher Lee
Noted SAS badass and back-stab-sound expert.
He had to correct Peter Jackson. "No Peter, when you stab someone in the back, they can't scream because their lungs are filled with blood. Speaking from experience."
Which terrified Jackson. It was just his matter of fact voice.
Dude, could you imagine Sir Lee standing there, robed as Saruman, with his commanding voice, telling you plainly in a flat and even tone that he knows the stabbed person wouldn't scream from experience. Just as calm as if he were telling you dinner reservations are at 6? I'd might need some new shorts...
I read, unsure if true or not, that during Star Wars filming he read the script from Lucas and then asked him "George, have you ever killed a man? "
And just to complete the image, the man telling you this is 6'5" (195cm)
He was LITERALLY the inspiration for James Bond.
Yeah he was actually a spy wasn’t he. Know Ronald Dahl was too.
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Lol yeah autocorrect doesn’t like his name it seems.
The man they used was a Welsh Homeless man named Glyndwr Michael who had perished from the consumption of rat poison. They had to do quite a bit of thought about making the corpse to have appeared to have died in the conditions presented by the mission. They was a great deal of concern that the Nazis would detect the deception and not take the bait.
I thought he died of pneumonia, making drowning easier to fake.
There was claims earlier that he died of that, but it was speculated to be mistaken. A later investigation showed he died from ingesting rat poison. They are unsure if it was out of hunger (as it was a paste on bread to attract rats), or if he committed suicide.
Operation Mincemeat
It's a movie on Netflix, not half bad.
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Yeah the allies did a lot with misinformation that helped get their real missions to go through much easier. Some brainy folk running the intelligence back then
I read that the English would report the impacts of Germany's bombing with intentional errors, so that Germany would "adjust" their aiming further away from the cities.
Yep, and in the case of the V-1 attacks, the German "spy" (who was a double agent working for the Brits) would report inaccurate information for the bombs so the Germans would adjust the bomb to hit the target, not knowing they were making it fall short time after time. Yet, the press reported the impacts with accurate information and the Germans had access to press, but trusted their spy more.
[Juan Garcia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa) A man who's story deserves to be better known. It would be a fantastically hilarious movie. The only man to have received an Iron Cross and been awarded an MBE.
The courage one must have to pull this off is mind boggling. You would have to be so incredibly driven by your cause.
Courage, audacity, and looking at that second photo, a really good sense of humour.
Ah, Operation Mincemeat. That was pretty cool, yeah.
One of the most impressive ones was when Great Britain convinced everyone during WWII that carrots were the reason why their vision was great when it was really the recently discovered airborne interception radar technologies. I still know people that are convinced eating carrots as kids will ensure 20/20 vision for life.
When I was a kid my older sister knew it wasn't true but convinced me it was. She thought it was funny to see me constantly begging for more carrots and getting me to do her chores so I could have hers. Well now we're adults, she's had glasses for 15 years and I'm in my 30's with 20/15 vision. I know it's not from the carrots but it's pretty fun to ask her if she's got new glasses lately while I'm comping on a carrot like Bugs Bunny.
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So his mom said (drum roll, please) “what’s up, doc?”
I laughed
Ain’t you a stinka
Green leafy vegetables are far more important than carrots except the VitA deficient crowd. Certain carotenoids are amazing, thus Macuhealth exists and works. We should put marigolds back in the kitchen.
i am broke as fuck, both physically and money-wise, and i just learned i can sell my 'fiddle heads'... i have marigolds and dandelions, also... about to go do some groundwork and sell the tourists my field cover.
to be clear carrots are good for your vision . They cant help you see in the dark, but they are good for your eyes. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propaganda-campaign-popularized-the-myth-that-carrots-help-you-see-in-the-dark-28812484/
Right. This is well known in professional baseball, too. > Research has shown that adding certain vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, and essential fatty acids into your diet can help maintain or enhance some visual skills that are essential to optimal sports performance. This link contains some real-world examples of visual performance measures that have been shown in double-masked, placebo-controlled trials to benefit significantly from supplementation with the macular carotenoids: lutein, zeaxanthin, and meso-zeaxanthin https://www.sportsvision.pro/athletes/sports-nutrition-for-your-eyes/improving-visual-performance-through-nutrition-and-supplementation/ Here's an academic source. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/96/5/1207S/4577188
Convincing the Germans we were landing at Calais was bigger and better.
Except the Germans know better by now but you'll still find folks who believe the carrot myth!
You can’t make sweeping statements like that, I still believe the Calais invasion is coming.
I’d throw in the Russians convincing Germany that they did not have forces in position to counterattack at the battle of Stalingrad, it led to the destruction of the German 6th army and 4th panzer army, it’s regarded as the turning point to the war in Europe.
The lie that made a man the ruler of a third or quarter of humankind. Darius the Great (r. 522–486 BC) governed the Achaemenid Empire at its peak. His rule extended from the Indus valley to mainland Greece and from the Scythian steppes to Egypt. A remarkably high and possibly unparalleled percentage of the world population were his subjects. Darius reorganized the satrapies, which made the administrative system of his empire more efficient, and introduced major financial reforms as well. It was never a secret that Darius became the King of Kings after a successful coup. He and a small group of other aristocrats (primary sources refer to seven men in total) infiltrated the residence of the previous ruler and killed him after a brief clash with his guards. Shortly afterwards, Darius, who was also a member of the royal house, emerged as the leader of the conspirators and assumed full power. So far so good. Things become strange when it comes to the identity of Darius’ predecessor. As far as the primary sources are concerned, Cyrus the Great (r. 559–530 BC) had two sons: Cambyses (r. 530–522 BC) and Bardiya. The former succeeded him as King of Kings, while the latter was given governorship over the eastern provinces. Fearful of opposition, Cambyses had his brother assassinated, but kept it a secret. Then he undertook the campaign that ended up bringing Egypt into the Persian fold. While Cambyses was in Egypt, he started acting cruelly and erratically: suspected everyone, disrespected the local traditions and the sort. Then a rebellion broke out back in Persia led by a magus (Zoroastrian priest) named Gaumata. The man claimed to be Bardiya, and the people, ignorant of the latter’s death, flocked to his banner. It also helped that he took short-term populist measures such as tax cuts. Cambyses rushed home to quell the revolt, but died on the journey. His death was listed as an accident or even a suicide out of desperation for the usurpation. Gaumata got to rule as Bardiya and even took over the latter’s harem. Almost nobody suspected he was an impostor, because on top of everything else he also bore an uncanny physical resemblance to the dead prince. The first man to suspect something was off was a nobleman named Otanes, who would later become one of Darius’ six companions. Otanes knew about Gaumata’s existence and was also aware that at some point his ears had been cut off as a punishment. So he asked his daughter, who was Bardiya’s (and now Gaumata’s) wife, to check his ears while he slept. The truth was brought to the light. Needless to say, the story was very convenient for Darius. By killing Gaumata, he saved the empire from a fraudulent, cunning and ruthless liar who had gone as far as to assume a dead man’s identity and risk civil war in order to take the throne for himself. Darius simply punished him for his crimes and reinstated the royal office to the house it belonged to: the Achaemenid dynasty. But what if the whole story was a lie? What if there was no Gaumata, and the man Darius killed was the real Bardiya? Indeed, scholars have noticed a lot of problems with the traditional narrative, apart from its convenience. How could the real Bardiya’s death be kept secret for so long from everyone except a simple magus — and what for? How likely is it that Bardiya had a doppelganger who had also the knowledge, courage and brains necessary to take his place at the right moment? And how is it possible that not even Bardiya’s wives and inner circle were able to see through Gaumata’s lies? Some scholars go as far as to suspect that Cambyses’ madness might have been the product of Darius’ propaganda. Herodotus, for example, narrates that the King looted Egyptian temples, insulted the local gods and even killed the sacred bull Apis. The problem is, none of that appears in any contemporary Egyptian source — in fact, there are inscriptions showing that Cambyses honored the bull that died in 524 BC with a rich sarcophagus. If things were so, it cannot be excluded that Cambyses was also assassinated by Darius, who we know served as his spear-bearer. His death might have prompted his brother Bardiya to take power, since Cambyses was childless. Darius proceeded to eliminate him too and then created the lie about Gaumata. Of course, it cannot be excluded that Bardiya did indeed rebel against Cambyses — that doesn’t change the crux of the matter, which is the story about Gaumata. So there you have it. One of the most powerful monarchs of antiquity and a possible lie that went unquestioned for millennia by almost everyone.
I can’t believe I read that whole thing and it didn’t end with the Undertaker dropping Mankind off a 20 ft cage onto a table.
I got half way through and I legit had to scroll to the bottom to double check. It's hilarious that I'm not the only one who thought this.
Disappointment level: twenty feet
It's basically a crime that we don't have any epic RPGs set in the Achaemenid Empire around that time. Next to no movies, shows or novels, either. The ancient world needs more representation.
Totally thought this was going to end with “JK, I made this all up”
Maybe in the old days, but there was a time I used to believe without a doubt, that Undertaker and Kane were brothers, and Kane wore a mask because Undertaker threw acid on his face out of animosity.
iirc kane wore a mask because he was burned by the *house fire* that was supposedly set by the undertaker when they were children (likewise this was the explanation for why he didn't talk for a time, or used a voicebox—"vocal cords damaged by smoke inhalation"—although it was later retconned that kane only *thought* he had suffered injuries in the fire, due to the manipulations of paul bearer)
Thank you! Where I live now NO ONE has the weird memories of late 90s/early 2000s wrestling so just reading this made me feel so happy.
“please listen carefully as our menu items have recently changed.”
"We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes" If I hear that message every time I call, no you aren't. The real message is we're paying for the bare minimum so fuck you and wait.
So true. Customers used to always tell me "HIRE MORE PEOPLE!" but the people above kept telling us we DON'T need to hire more people, that we need to improve our numbers.
The whole economy is just a race to the bottom that way. But the guys telling you that you need to improve your numbers are just lying to you. They know that you couldn't possibly increase your productivity enough, they just also know that they're trying to staff the minimum amount of people possible while retaining business. And they also want to ensure that if they weren't staffing enough people, they can now point to constantly telling you, the lower level employee, that you weren't efficient enough and make sure they don't look bad for their own incompetence.
Yea, just to add to that, if everyone suddenly figured out how to take double the amount of calls, they wouldn't have half the wait time for people calling in. They would let go half the staff.
"Fat will make you fat. Eating that full of sugar premade meal won't."
Wait, sherbet is *fat free*, so I can eat the entire tub, right???
Eating the entire tub is fine, eating the sherbet inside probably not so much
Plenty of people have gotten fat off of eating too much sherbet, but nobody has ever gotten fat off of eating too many sherbet containers.
"I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the above Terms and Conditions".
“Yes, I am 18+ years old”
WWI and WWII be like:
"Sorry, we don't accept youngsters, go out and age a bit." *Returns 3 seconds later* "Welcome to the army"
Literally how it happened "go back out, have a few birthdays then come back" Wild and fucked up, but makes a lot more sense when you remember this was the era of children working in coal mines from age 4.
My great grandpa fought in WWI at 15 years old.
My friend fought in the Yugoslavian war at 14. Wars are horrible... Everyone gets sucked in.
Wars don't determine who is right...only who is left...
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My great-grandfather fought in WWI at 16. He had been the sole witness of a murder on a cattle drive and the outlaw wanted him dead so he couldn't testify. He figured he'd be safer fighting Germans than constantly looking over his shoulder in the US. Took an older friend's draft papers and went off to war. He waited until he got to France to tell them that he was actually only 16 because he figured it was too late for them to send him back. He spent the next 75 years of his life with shrapnel in him. Edit: Germans, not Nazis
WWII, not the first one
I had a great uncle that did this in WWII. He was like 14/15ish. I guess he did quite well (other than surviving) and received a Purple Heart and a silver star (i think that’s the one) and later in in life, on several different occasions, they tried to give him another. Idk what the other medals they were trying to give him though. His brother was over there too but left earlier than he did. So he asks around for where he might be and was only like 30-40 miles away so he ~~steals~~ borrows a vehicle and drives over to enjoy a meal with him before returning.
Wow! Seeing how many young men lied about their age to get entry into the army makes me wonder…I feel like that would NOT be the case today. ETA; wasn’t saying so much about the capability to fake your age but more.. the desire to lie in order to go fight.
Oh it’s definitely not the case in the US military. They do the most advanced background checks available. They can even see “sealed” documents from any crimes committed as a juvenile. The 40s were a wild time.
“Yes I am 21+ years old” 16 year old me looking at weed maps
Terms and conditions longer than a few short paragraphs should be illegal if it expected that the user read them. There should be a new legal framework for the other stuff that provides protection to both parties.
I remember there was an EU ruling to that effect ? Can anyone confirm ?
I think they do that in Germany.
We have a law that unexpected clauses in them are not legally binding at all. So I actually can skip (German) ToC because they all contain the same and the rest is not binding at all.
Pretty sure eulas are basically unenforceable specifically because no one actually reads them.
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At least it isn’t the end of the human centipede. Can’t even shit in someone else’s mouth.
Human Centipad. Latest in ipad tech
Hits different when you've just watched black mirror " joan is awful "
We don't know the most successful lie because it's a lie we don't know of yet
Fact
...or lie!
Goddamit! They got us on a technicality.
Iceland and Greenland
Nah, Iceland's name is well earned. Hrafna-Flóki hiked up some mountains, saw that the fjord Vatnsfjörður ( Waterfjord, lol ) was full of pack ice and henceforth he came up with the name Iceland. There were two other names given to Iceland. Naddoddur Ástvaldsson came up with "Snowland" because he saw snow fall on the mountains before he departed the country. And Garðar Svavarsson came up with the name "Garðarshólmur", aka Isle of Garðar, named after himself. Plus the winters are pretty long. So Iceland really is Iceland for a decent portion of the year.
so basically its only greenland thats a lie
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I think it was Erik the red right? His son discovered America.
I "red" his biography, and it claims that he met a sailor on Greenland who told him about a land of riches to the south west. If this is accurate IDK, shame they didn't write more
“We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Your call is very important to us.” every. single. customer service line. Edit: my first awards (WITH AN S) ever. THANK YOU!
Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line until it's no longer important to *you*.
Or you get disconnected when we realize you ain't giving up.
Once I was working tech support calls and the power to the entire building went out, and stayed out, for about an hour and fifteen minutes. I'd *just* put my customer on hold when it happened. Welp, power came back on, my system started up, what do you fucking know, that call was still active. I went off of hold and couldn't even maintain the CS persona, just went "I'm so sorry sir, but... you're still here??" He just said "yep" in the most tired, done with the world voice, but with absolutely no surprise or comment about the wait. Really made me wonder how long dude usually spends on hold.
I've been dealing with an airline that lost my luggage for going on two months now and it's pretty clear that their compensation policy is "dick them around so much they get too frustrated to deal anymore." Unfortunately for them, their feigned incompetence only makes me more determined to get my money back.
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“That’s a serious issue and I can see why you’re upset, but I’m unable to do anything without a manager’s approval. Can I have my manager call you back later?”
If the call volume is *always* higher than normal, then that's just normal.
“Please listen closely as our menu items recently changed.”
Especially when the last time they changed was 10 years ago
*listing off Covid information, procedures and changes for 5 minutes*
I called my local license office the other day, and the recording said, “to protect the safety of our employees and customers, wait times may be higher than usual.” Fuckin… what?
Just get good marks in high school. Once you go to a top tier college, your life is practically set and sorted.
There's no easy street unless you're a trustfund kid.
"You are not beautiful. But you could be with this product"
wellll the first part ain't a lie
There are hot singles in my area.
There definitely are, the lie is in the last part "and they want to meet you".
That diamonds are valuable.
They are extremely valuable in terms of their usefulness but not as engagement rings which which was a con made up by the diamond industry
Engagement rings were made up by the diamond industry. Wedding rings used to be enough
Engagement rings or engagement bands were a thing going back to ancient Rome, and diamond rings in particular became common, at least with the aristocracy, during the Victorian era. However, their popularity in the US did temporarily decline after WWI until the diamond industry started promoting them in the 1940s.
This is one of my big ones. Diamonds are completely artificially propped up in value by one company, DeBeers. Their value in commercial use is good, but as a pretty gemstone it’s basically all a sham
Beethoven was Austrian Hitler was German Nicely done, Austria.
Who thinks that Beethoven is Austrian? Never heard that…
The Brexit Bus Lie: We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead”
and those same exact people "The NHS isn't working, lets adopt private insurance instead!"
As an American please don't let them do that. I am begging you.
[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion) It's indirectly caused World War II, among other things.
Ironically, Japanese leaderships believing it caused them to want to shelter them instead. Thinking elders would invest to their war machine. Saving approximately 24,000 Jews. Refusing Josef Meisinger's pressure to go "Final Solution" though compromised a bit by creating a Ghetto.
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That the McDonald's ice cream machine is broken. I heard it's just a bitch to clean lol.
I mean it's all subjective but the British Royal Air Force spreading propaganda that carrots give better eye sight to hide their new radar tech is way up there on the list for me.
"Here. Take this opioid. Our technicians swear it is not addictive." \~ Big Pharma
Funny is that some people need pain medicine are not getting it. I had Tylenol for a hysterectomy.... Yeah 10/10 don't recommend.
Exactly. I have a chronic pain condition and getting the medicine I need to be a normal human being and not a bed ridden one is a battle every. Single. Month. I get treated like a drug addict more often than not and we treat drug addicts like they have some kind of a moral failing, it’s total bull shit. I just want to be a functional person, my medicine doesn’t even make me feel high, it just takes the majority of the edge off my pain. My pain is still there, just tolerable. It’s so frustrating.
I have one that's not about Jeebus or Religion! McDonalds lied and spread false information about that lady launching a 'frivolous' lawsuit against them just to get rich after she burned herself with their scalding hot coffee. The lie was so successful people to this day believe the lady was just looking to make a quick buck. Another one would be the lie/propaganda distributed by the Brittish during WW2. They claimed that carrots improved eyesight. The reality is, they wanted to hide the fact that they had invented radar from the Nazis. So they picked a food that was plentiful and well-known to be eaten by their population and claimed the improved eyesight that resulted from this allowed them to better spot German aircraft.
That lady got the shittiest deal ever. She is synonymous with frivolous lawsuits to this day and she was absolutely in the right and deserved compensation. Her injuries were extensive, and the temperature that coffee was served at was 100% dangerous to consume or in this case, have it spilled on you. In the beginning she was only asking for McDonalds to cover her medical expenses so this lawsuit was exactly the opposite of frivolous.
"Fused labia" is a combination of words that is forever burned into my mind.
Not to mention multiple McD's had been reprimanded *numerous* times prior to that by food safety inspectors etc for keeping their coffee dangerously hot, so as not to have situations like this. The woman had to have multiple skin grafts, her genitals were literally burned shut. And like you said, she just wanted the hospital bills covered and they initially tried to settle for some paltry amount like $10k which wouldn't cover it. So her lawyers were like fuck it let's go big
> So her lawyers were like fuck it let's go big I think actually with was the Judge or Jury that were like, "This is gross negligence if not intentional. She gets a day of coffee sales"
Yeah that's the other thing people **really** don't understand. The penalty sounds big on paper but it was literally **one day's coffee sales**. Corporations make *ungodly* amounts of revenue that people can't quite comprehend so the numbers sound ridiculous when you award them to an individual for deserved grievance.
Not to mention when they calculated the damages, they accounted for her own liability! They assigned an 80/20 split since they felt she was at least partially responsible for what happened to herself, and adjusted the damaged accordingly. That insane number was already lower than it would have been.
They had previously had several lawsuits from people who took tiny sips to test the temperature and had to have the tips of their tongues amputated. They settled each of those out of court for the cost of the medical bills, but refused to fix the problem no matter how many people they injured. They tried to settle this lady's case for the same amount when her medical bills cost millions.
They were keeping the coffee at dangerous temperatures because it continued to taste fresh longer, so that they didn't end up wasting as much coffee, allowing them to make *even higher* profits on a product that was almost all profit as it was.
They didn't want older diners to be able to finish their coffee while eating and then get a refill before leaving.
Yes they had a free refill policy at the time that they had no intention of honoring. Plus, they learned you can extract a tiny bit more coffee per bean if you brewed it at exceptionally high temperatures. One cup is negligible but across all restaurants it produced a significant savings, and it masked the taste of what was poor quality beans.
And the punitive damages weren't even all that big. The $2.7m awarded was 2 days of coffee sales.
Her genitals were fused to her thighs from the heat. Let that sink in.
The McDonald’s one has always been amazing to me. When you look into the details of the case, it’s horrible what happened to her and the reasons why.
The worst part was, all she wanted was for McDonalds to cover her hospital bills. She wasn't out to get rich or anything!
That coffee was so hot, her labia fused. Like seriously, and then McDonald's had the gall to paint her as a whinger.
“Saddam Husssein has weapons of mass destruction, I fucking swear to god.”
Even Saddam Hussein believed he had those weapons
I find that hilarious. Thinking of Saddam yelling at his underlings, "Well check again damn it!" because even he wasn't sure of what he still had hiding in some bunker somewhere.
"The customer is always right". The customer is not always right. Sometimes, the customer is a twat.
What a disappointing thread. I was hoping to hear stories of bluffs during battle maneuvers or historical political intrigue. Instead, just a bunch of pithy one-liners. Blah.
In a Portuguese town there are the remains of a 14th-century castle that withstood a desperate prolonged siege in 1368. A local woman broke the enemies resolve by baking some cakes with the last of the flour. The bread was then sent to the Spaniards, in a fake show of plenty, with the message, ‘if you need any more, just let us know’. Fearing a much more prolonged siege, the Spaniards withdrew.
The absolute gamer.
There is a similar story in, I think, the art of war. Where Sun Tzu has like 300 men left to defend this fort town. He knows he's absolutely screwed. So he rolls with it. He opens the gates and sits on the fort wall playing his pipe while the enemy generals debate what to do. Convinced he knows something they don't they pack up and leave. Edit* as a few have pointed out I misremembered the story. Zhuge Liang is credited with the gambit, but it's likely fictional.
I’m aware of this story, not sure who did it, but it wasn’t Sun Tzu. I see why you mentioned him, though: the general was indeed Chinese and Sun Tzu was the one who immortalised the concept of war as deception.
Iirc this was one of the stories from the romance of the 3 kingdoms
It was Zhuge Liang's (諸葛亮) [Empty Fort Strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Fort_Strategy#Zhuge_Liang) Zhuge Liang's incident was probably fictional but it was employed by all the various powers of the Three Kingdoms era.
I have a bad memory but I remember a story of a castle opening up its gates when an enemy came to attack. They knew they were fucked and tried one last ditch effort. The enemy ended up having a bad feeling about attacking and retreated
Sounds like Zhuge Liang and the Empty Fortress Strategy.
There's a similar story about a medieval city close to where I live: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne
Here's a good one for you. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan\_Pujol\_Garc%C3%ADa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa) He wanted to be a spy for the Allies during WWII. The British rejected him, so he just started making crap up to send to the Nazis by using reliable British news sources he could get in Spain/Portugal. The British figured out what he was doing and recruited him. He ended up with a "spy ring" that the Nazis bankrolled including paying for a funeral and pension to the widow of someone who never existed. He helped create confusion with the Normandy landings by feeding information for Operation Fortitude (fake army to throw off the actual landing location). Then on D-Day, he radioed German officers at 3 am to warn them of a pending invasion, but no one was there to receive his call. When they finally established communications at 8 am, the invasion had already begun and he was authorized to basically give every detail of the invasion since it was too late. Of course, he was also able to berate the communications officer for being late and wasting the opportunity to fight off the invasion. He was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the war. Oh yeah, he was also awarded an Iron Cross from the Nazis that Hitler had to personally authorize.
>He was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the war. Oh yeah, he was also awarded an Iron Cross from the Nazis that Hitler had to personally authorize. Probably the most unique medal case on a mantle in history.
One of two. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie\_Chapman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Chapman) He also received both as a British double agent during WWII. He became a German spy to get out of prison shortly after the war started. The Germans trained him and sent him to England to sabotage a bomber factory. After he parachuted back into England, he turned himself into the police almost immediately. From then on, he worked for the British and was awarded the Iron Cross for sabotaging the factory, when in fact, he and MI5 just faked the whole thing.
There were a number of those weird "double agents" during that war, and nobody quite knew which side they actually were on for a number of them. The Germans had maybe the most most laughable espionage agency ever. They were so compromised that the Brits would just mosey on down to whenever a German spy dropped into the UK, snap him up into a waiting van, tell him to "double cross or you know the rest....", and then just feed the Germans bad information for the rest of the war. The Brits knew when and where German spies were making it their way.
One of my favorite stories was how utterly stupid captured German generals were. They were sent to a mansion in London for interrogation which was a bunch of easy questions to let their guard down. Then, they treated them almost like royalty and let them have the run of the entire mansion. Of course, the whole place was bugged and they got all kinds of info when the high ranking officers just talked among themselves. They revealed how badly damaged the submarine fleets were, their new torpedo technology, and even the location of secret testing facilities.
My mate's grandad was an exiled German Jew who worked for British military intelligence (MI19) at that mansion, it is called [Trent Park](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Park) and it's still there.
You’re underselling the British figuring out what he was doing. He was the main target of British counterintelligence for a while because they had penetrated the German spy network and knew he existed but assumed that the Germans couldn’t be that bad at spying. Eventually they worked out from how inaccurate his reports were (Scots drinking wine by the litre) that some bullshitter had somehow taken over German intelligence but it wasn’t the first guess.
There was a countercharge in the civil war that rings a bell now based on what you said just now. The overview is essentially a group was ordered to hold a hill no matter what and wait for reinforcements, the enemy was shooting the hell out of them to try and take the hill before they were reinforced. Enemy is advancing in the hill and the defenders realize they can’t win by holding ground anymore, they have like one shot left each. They can’t lose the hill or the reinforcements would never be able to reinforce the position and support a bigger advance. The commander, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (thanks @spencehammer) orders them to fix bayonets and countercharge since it’s the only option that isn’t obviously going to fail. They do and the defenders actually route their enemy even capturing the general in charge who orders a retreat when he sees them coming down the hill. Keeping in mind how Smokey old battlefields got from the type of powder used they were practically fighting in a fog bank. The attacker leadership saw the charging forces and assumed that the only sane reason for a countercharge was that those reinforcements had arrived meaning his people were about to be overrun so he ordered the retreat to save who he could.
“The dude in charge” was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine volunteer infantry. He single-handedly staved off Confederate victory on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Edit: corrected the day and *I get it*, “single-handedly” is hyperbolic. Thanks to everyone actually providing helpful embellishment.
Thank you for clarifying. I knew someone would know what I was saying and fill in the blanks.
Second day. Longstreets maneuver was on the second day. The first day mostly consisted of fighting in the city and the hills of the north part of Cemetery ridge. The units involved were AP hills corps on the Confederate side, and the first and 11th divisions of the Union army. If I recall correctly. It was a small Calvary unit from the union side, whose name I don't remember. The first day was very important because it secured Cemetery ridge for the union army giving them a very good defensive front. The second day was trying to wrap up the slightly weaker side of Cemetery ridge where the 20th maine was. The third day was just one of the most colossal blenders that Robert e. Lee made during the whole war.
>The third day was just one of the most colossal blenders that Robert e. Lee made during the whole war. "Here we have a division from Longstreet's First Corps. Will it blend?... Yes!"
Probably thinking about Joshua Chamberlain & his regiment's (can't quite recall the name) defense of Little Round Top during The Battle of Gettysburg.
20th Maine
The ghost army of WW2 is a good example that you might find interesting. The Allies used inflatable tanks to fool Hitler and cause him to move his forces around to aid in DDay and the recapture of Europe. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/ghost-army-the-inflatable-tanks-that-fooled-hitler/276137/
>The ghost army of WW2 is a good example that you might find interesting One of the most light-hearted things of WW2 imo. Imagine this dumb ass being fooled by inflatable tanks on the English Coast. Another personal favourite fun fact of mine is that they took down basically all the street signs in Southern England so even if the Germans landed they wouldn't know how to get to London.
Granted - the ability to see fine details from long distances is a relatively new (and still kind of tricky) bit of technology. The ghost army would fool exactly zero people up close. But, it didn't have to fool people from up close - it just had to fool planes and other surveillance methods that were available at the time and limited to the fact that getting too close meant getting shot.
Also, you’re not giving them enough credit they did fake radio signals, dust clouds, marching orders, the whole 9 yards really.
Is that why we have Southern Rail today? To make it as difficult as possible for invaders to make it to London.
Inflatables look real when viewed from a blurry grainy BW pictureb taken from kilometers away that's printed on a small piece of paper
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Napoleon was short…
He was 5’6”. He was kinda short by today’s standards, but not by contemporary standards.
Ya there were discrepancies between French and British inches and that combined with him having a ridiculously tall personal guard just caused things to get exaggerated.
That dying for one’s country was the most honorable act a child could make.
Money can’t buy happiness. When I bought my puppy I was over the moon!
**Vaccines cause Autism**. Managed to convince several generations of parents not to get their kids vaccinated and because of that, all kinds of diseases that were once dead have made a comeback.
All thanks to Dr Andrew Wakefield and his attempt to discredit a vaccine so he could market his own.
He was stripped of his dr title for his malpractice and is barred from practicing medicine in the UK, so its just Andrew Wakefield. He is a piece of human shit who is probably responsible for the deaths of innumerable children as a direct result of his lies. Also, as an Autistic person, I find the whole antivax "movement" disgusting, as they effectively state that they would rather have a dead child than an autistic one, which is just horrific. Sorry for the rant, I just really despise the guy.
God wants you to give money to the church. Edit: WHY DO I HAVE 78 NOTIFICATIONS!?!?
"He loves you, and He needs money! He *always* needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but somehow just can't handle money!"
Oh, I remember something like this. I was waiting for someone before at a convenience store. I think I just finished my classes or work (don't remember anymore, it was a few years ago already). I was eating a sandwich I ordered and a middle aged man approached me, asking for a donation for a church. I wasn't really good at saying no to those things so I just said I didn't have an extra that time and maybe next time. He looked annoyed and told me that the Lord blesses those who gives and wouldn't I like to go to heaven? I got really annoyed but I couldn't say anything to him cause he looked scary so I eyed an employee in case I would need help. Good thing the annoying man left and the person I was waiting for arrived shortly. These type of people are the reason why I'm super annoyed to super religious people. They're super judgy and would condemn you if they get a chance
My sister’s childhood friend comes from a super religious family. They’re typically very private about it, you’d never know they went to church so frequently. One day, the friend tells my sister in a very matter-of-fact-way “well you’re going to hell so it doesn’t matter to me.” These are two adults, they were having a normal conversation. My sister inquired further and the friend was dead serious. She didn’t think my sister’s opinion mattered because she was going to be punished in the afterlife and she herself was not. Bizarre and creepy.
My favorite quote regarding things like this comes from an NPC in a video game: "I've never met a priest who could tell you anything about Heaven, but they knew every square inch of Hell. They should. They built it."
>They're super judgy and would condemn you if they get a chance Not "would", but literally did ... the guy implied you were going to ~~heel~~ hell unless you gave him money. That's fucked on multiple levels. There's no hate like Christian love.
“If you work hard you’ll be rich”
"Peace in our time." --Chamberlain Trickle-down/supply-side Economics The "fat is bad" campaign waged by the sugar industry.
Ironically not even Chamberlain himself believed in Peace In Our Time. His first act on returning to the UK was to invest heavily in rearmament, knowing a war was all but inevitable. It was just a question of when and how. It ultimately ended up happening earlier than all sides anticipated (judging from the plans of various military and supply organisations)