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Just list any events in history that you find especially funny.

My favorite is the defenestration of Prague- Imagine a bunch of fat aristocrats being tossed out a window into steaming piles of gak. You're forced to wonder: did they land head first? On their sides? Was it liquidy? chunky? or a mix?

Once there were a bunch of barbarians who took over a Roman city. The Roman noblemen were so outraged, that they stood in front of their houses in defiance.

The barbarians stopped their looting because they had no idea what the feth was going on, so they asked one of the nobles why they were all just standing there. The nobleman hit him in the head with a cane, and then the barbarians killed all of them and stole their stuff.

Plato is giving a lecture on the concept of ideas; in front of him is a table with cups of different shapes and sizes. He states that although there are many cups, there is only one idea of a cup, a "cupness". This idea is what precedes all cups and is what we derive all cups from.
Diogenes who has been listening, stands up and states, "I see the cup, but I do not see the 'cupness'".
"That is because you have the eyes to see the cup," Plato retorts while tapping his temple, "but not the intellect to perceive the 'cupness'".
Diogenes walks to the table, picks up a cup and asks Plato, "Is this empty?"
Plato nods.
"Where is the emptiness that precedes the empty cup?"
While Plato thinks about this, Diogenes reaches over and taps Plato's temple and says, "I think you will find the emptiness in here."

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." --The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." --Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." --A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." --Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." --Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" --Apple Computer Inc. founder, Steve Jobs, on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." --1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." --Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." --Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." --Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". --Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". --Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon- Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

nuff said

Wars as horrible as they are usually give a lot of funny moments when one side of the other is overconfident about stablished knowledge.

US Navy wrote:"A minimum depth of water of 76 feet may be assumed necessary to successfully drop torpedoes from planes. About two hundred yards of torpedo run is necessary before the exploding device is armed, but this may be altered."

US Navy memo 23 June 1941 (Pearl Harbor is about 40 feet)

M.

The War of 1812

June 16 1991

The birth of my friend Ben.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ben: March 30, 2009 - The day Jimi first showed his penis to a girl.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jimi again: Sometime in the future.

The day Ben MIGHT get laid...

Star trek ethics they are just funny.

There was a Viking-can't remember his name-who killed an enemy in battle. Pleased with himself, he decapitated the corpse, and stuck the head on his horses saddle. While he was out riding, the dead head's teeth scratched his leg. The cut became infected, and he died. That's right-he was killed by a deadman.

I lol'ed.

avantgarde wrote:Plato is giving a lecture on the concept of ideas; in front of him is a table with cups of different shapes and sizes. He states that although there are many cups, there is only one idea of a cup, a "cupness". This idea is what precedes all cups and is what we derive all cups from.
Diogenes who has been listening, stands up and states, "I see the cup, but I do not see the 'cupness'".
"That is because you have the eyes to see the cup," Plato retorts while tapping his temple, "but not the intellect to perceive the 'cupness'".
Diogenes walks to the table, picks up a cup and asks Plato, "Is this empty?"
Plato nods.
"Where is the emptiness that precedes the empty cup?"
While Plato thinks about this, Diogenes reaches over and taps Plato's temple and says, "I think you will find the emptiness in here."

Oh, fictional history is ok as well? I can make up all sorts of stories too.

There's this crazy myth that the USA was not annexed by Texas in 1845. I know it cracks me up every time I hear it.

This one time France claimed they won in a war...

SilverMK2 wrote:This one time France claimed they won in a war...

The French Civil War doesn't count, how many times do we have to tell them!

Weren't they saved in that one war by a little crazy girl taking control of their army?

That's almost a win.

Yeah, but then we got hold of her and set her on fire.

Rule Britannia!

Hitler wanted all non-Germans kicked out of Germany, when he was Austrian-Hungarian. lol.

Lord-Loss wrote:Hitler wanted all non-Germans kicked out of Germany, when he was Austrian-Hungarian. lol.

yeah, but he made sure Austria became part of Germany first! And he had the opinion that all german-speaking countries and regions were in fact, all Germany, split up by a Jewish-Brittish-French-American-Communist conspiracy.

I don't know a lot of funny history not already mentioned... The majority of history is quite tragic and dramatic...Ah, one springs to mind:

King William I (or II or III, not sure) of the Netherlands had a chalet in Switzerland, right next to the Geneva lake. He used to have breakfast right at the lakeside in his bedrobe, but there were a lot of other tourists who made boat trips there at the time. Some boatmen would even go past the King's lodge to show it: "look zhere lives ze king of ze Nezzerlanz, see 'e iz eatingue 'iz breakfast dejeuner"
King William became more and more annoyed by the tourists, so one time he flashed a bunch of British ladies on holiday who were floating past in their boat ("Wanna see the king? here he is!". This was in the Victorian era, so the ladies complained to the local authorities and got the King banned from the canton.
This led to the local authorities repossessing his chalet or otherwise banning him from spending holidays in the canton. King William was very angry about that and contemplated war with Switzerland. His ministers councilled that as impossible for there were a few other countries in-between the Netherlands and Switzerland who would probably not be cooperative in this endeavour.

Most comedic event in history.....

Obama becoming President. It's funny in a not-so-good sort of way.

Winston Churchill, just in general.
What a guy.

Churchill rocks harder than any other political leader of the 20th century. Fact.

In Nazi Germany 1937 there is a Jewish man walking down the street. This is noticed by a policeman who stops him and shouts "Schweinehund!"
The Jew smiles, offers his hand and says "Goldstein."

On a real historical note I found it amusing that during the French Revolution on the day the Bastille fell King Louis XVI wrote in his diary "Nothing [happened]."

Home ec advice for girls:

http://staff.imsa.edu/socsci/jvictory/gender_images60s/women_50s_home_ec.htm

I pointed this out to my wife and about lost me noggin to the backswing she gave me!

JEB_Stuart wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:This one time France claimed they won in a war...

The French Civil War doesn't count, how many times do we have to tell them!

It's true, it doesn't count.

Here's a little trick that should prove it too.

Go to Google, type "french military victories" into the search bar then click the 'I'm feeling lucky' button. Interesting results follow.

(Caution: This works on Google.ca, not sure about Google.com)

lol.

Good one to both.

Lord Maleval wrote:

JEB_Stuart wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:This one time France claimed they won in a war...

The French Civil War doesn't count, how many times do we have to tell them!

It's true, it doesn't count.

Here's a little trick that should prove it too.

Go to Google, type "french military victories" into the search bar then click the 'I'm feeling lucky' button. Interesting results follow.

(Caution: This works on Google.ca, not sure about Google.com)

You've all been on uncyclopedia too much...

Russo-Japanese War of 1904

The Zar´s Navy left St Petersburg bound for Port Arthur at the end of 1904. They were so paranoid that in the middle of the North Sea they shelled Japanese torpedo boats, actually British fishing boats, with the Royal Navy threatening retaliation and the following diplomatic humiliation of having to compensate the wrongly attacked fishermen. On the North of Africa one of the battleships managed to foul and break the telephone cable between Africa and Europe cutting communications for four days (more diplomatic excuses)

Along the way the ships were attacked again by a Swedish steamer, a German fishing boat and a French sloop, oh those sneaky Japanese! 300 odd shells and diplomatic letters later the Russians manage to sink a warship. Pity that it was one of their own that was towing a target ship during artillery practice, by the way the target ship managed to weather the fire storm without being hit!.

With the morale of the crews sinking they were reinforced in Madagascar by the Russian Mediterranean Fleet, that was made up of such old ships that one of the Russian captains commented that the best thing they could do to help the fleet would be to scuttle themselves. The rest is history, after one of the most complicated sailings of naval history, arranging so many disparate ships into a more or less coherent fleet and crossing half the world, the Russians were late, Port Arthur was already in Japanese hands. Then came Tsushima and the rise of the Japanese Empire in May 1905.

M.

In the war of 1812 the british captured Washington (or Philedelphia) I think, and siezed the capital building. And then voted on whether to burn down the town or not. They voted yes.

@Emil - It was Washington, that's why The White House is called that. The British torched The Presidential palace - when it was refurbished it became colloquially known as 'The White House'.

But we're all mates now.

USAF Maintenance Logs

Some (supposedly) actual maintenance complaints submitted by US Air Force pilots and the replies from the maintenance crews...

Problem: "Left inside main tire almost needs replacement."
Solution: "Almost replaced left inside main tire."

Problem: "Test flight OK, except autoland very rough."
Solution: "Autoland not installed on this aircraft."

Problem #1: "#2 Propeller seeping prop fluid."
Solution #1:"#2 Propeller seepage normal."
Problem #2: "#1, #3, and #4 propellers lack normal seepage."

Problem: "The autopilot doesn't."
Signed off :"IT DOES NOW."

Problem: "Something loose in cockpit."
Solution: "Something tightened in cockpit."

Problem: "Evidence of hydraulic leak on right main landing gear."
Solution: "Evidence removed..."

Problem: "DME volume unbelievably loud."
Solution: "Volume set to more believable level."

Problem: "Dead bugs on windshield."
Solution: "Live bugs on order."

Problem: "Autopilot in altitude hold mode produces a 200 fpm descent."
Solution: "Cannot reproduce problem on ground."

Problem: "IFF inoperative."
Solution: "IFF inoperative in OFF mode."

Problem: "Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick."
Solution: "That's what they're there for."

Problem: "Number three engine missing."
Solution: "Engine found on right wing after brief search."

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:USAF Maintenance Logs

These remind me of an old Air Force book my dad had called There I Was, Flat On My Back... It was a little book that contained bar songs and little cartoons about humor in the Air Force from the 40's to the late 60's, I believe. Highly amusing. Not sure if it's around anymore, but a lot of the cartoons involving mechanics are pretty much like those quotes.