in 1932 the australian army tried to eradicate emus using machine guns.

they lost.

leonardo davinci designed war machines, including a robotic knight that was operated by cables.

the cia paid spied during the vietnam war with items from the sears catalog. this is because the spies were part of a barter economy, and had no use for cash.

during the vietnam war, catholic priests in south vietnam ran private armies that destroyed buddhist temples and forced buddhists to convert to catholicism.

353 japanese planes attacked pearl harbor in a single day. only 5 american planes made it into the air - the rest, and most of the u.s. pacific fleet, were destroyed. they managed to bring down 6 japanese pilots.

during america's internment of american citizens of japanese descent - something you may not have learned about in school - 18,000 japanese-american men served in the u.s. military, and earned 9,486 purple hearts and 21 medals of honor, the most of any fighting group.

the first american soldier to die in vietnam was killed by a fellow soldier who was drunk at the time.

after serving during wwii, more than 1 million black americans were denied the benefits of the g.i. bill (specifically, free education and low home mortgage rates) simply because they were black.

during the korean war, 75% of north korean's air battles were actually fought by russian pilots. this was kept secret by russia, korea, and the american government to avoid war with russia.

later, the american supported the taliban in its war against russia in afghanistan, eventually driving the russians out and leaving behind a taliban trained and armed by the american government.

significantly more u.s. citizens have been killed by gun violence than by all of the wars in our history.

in japan, female warriors were called onna-bugeisha. they fought alongside samurai in times of war.

during the vietnam war, 38,000 american troops were killed and 3,000,000 vietnamese.

the great wall of china was only tangentially intended to keep out the huns, who could easily scale it with ladders along less-patrolled spans. but their horses couldn't, and the huns' method of warfare was dependent upon riders.

a one-night firebomb attack on tokyo by the united states in 1945 killed 180,000 mostly poor civilians - more than twice as many as were killed by the atomic bomb the u.s. dropped on hiroshima.

on 3/1/54, the u.s. tested a nuclear weapon on bikini atoll in the pacific ocean. the physicists who designed the bomb estimated that it would produce a blast of roughly 5 megatons - the equivalent of 5 million tons of conventional explosives such as dynamite.

the actual explosion was 15 megatons - more than 1,000 times greater than the blasts that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki in japan. the fireball alone was 4 miles across, and spewed radioactive debris around the globe. it left a 1 mile wide crater, and people hundreds of miles away suffered radiation burns.

in 1961, russia detonated a nuclear weapon that was more than 3 times larger. currently, 8 different countries have nuclear stockpiles estimated at about 20,000 such bombs.

during wwii, the national speed limit in the u.s. was reduced to 35 mph to conserve gasoline and rubber tires.

in 1955 and 1965, the u.s. army blew radioactive dust over poor black neighborhoods in st. louis to test its effect in case of nuclear war, and lied about the tests until 1994. the dust caused deaths and cases of cancer for decades.

between 1798 and the civil war, the u.s. navy lost almost as many officers to duels as to combat.

since wwii, the united states has killed approximately 20 million people around the world via direct or indirect military action.

in addition to the spread of diseases brought to the americas by white settlers, which decimated 95% of the native american population, the united states government conducted 40 official wars against native americans, which killed an estimated 45,000 more.