Where Authority Trips Over Its Own Importance,
JT Santana
and Emus Win Wars
History has an odd way of teaching lessons. Sometimes it speaks in noble edicts, constitutional crises, or revolutionary fervor. But more often than we might admit, it cackles. Buried beneath the weight of wars, treaties, and ecclesiastical decrees are episodes so patently absurd that they seem less like moments of high seriousness and more like the rough drafts of a Monty Python sketch. This is not to say that history is trivial—it is simply that humans, in their great seriousness, are prone to the sorts of contradictions, overreactions, and misguided certainties that leave posterity both horrified and howling. Welcome to the unintended comedy of serious history.
The Cadaver Synod: When Popes Take Grudges Past the Grave
In the year 897, Pope Stephen VI decided to prosecute Pope Formosus for perjury and abuse of power. There was, of course, a minor complication: Formosus had been dead for several months. Not to be dissuaded by mortal boundaries, Stephen had Formosus’s decomposing corpse exhumed, dressed in full papal vestments, seated on a throne, and placed on trial. A deacon was assigned to speak for the cadaver, who—understandably—offered no rebuttals. Formosus was found guilty, stripped of his sacred robes, had three fingers cut off, and was tossed into the Tiber River (Duffy, 2006).
This act, known as the Cadaver Synod, was less a judicial proceeding than a public exorcism of legitimacy. Ironically, it made Stephen look mad. The people of Rome rioted, Stephen was imprisoned, and within a year he had been strangled to death in prison.
As the 12th-century historian Liutprand of Cremona remarked with evident disdain, “Never had the see of Peter been more dishonored than in those days.” It was the ecclesiastical equivalent of fighting with your ex’s ghost.
The Great Emu War: Australia Declares War on Birds—and Loses
In 1932, Australian farmers in Western Australia faced a growing problem: emus—tall, fast, flightless birds—were destroying crops. Veterans who had been resettled after World War I pleaded with the government for help. The government, in a brilliant leap of bureaucratic logic, deployed soldiers armed with machine guns to wage war against the birds. Thus began the Great Emu War.
The operation began in November. Soldiers armed with Lewis guns and thousands of rounds found themselves outmaneuvered by birds. Emus proved quick, elusive, and frustratingly immune to organized military tactics. “If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds,” said Major G.P.W. Meredith, the commander of the operation, “it would face any army in the world” (Long, 1981).
The first attempt to eliminate the emus failed within days. A second campaign fared no better. After over 10,000 rounds had been fired with only a few hundred confirmed kills, the government withdrew in embarrassment. The emus had, in effect, won.
It remains one of the only documented cases in modern history where a national military force declared war on wildlife and lost. The unintended comedy lay not just in the premise, but in the outcome: birds outflanked the soldiers who had survived the Great War.
The 1904 Olympic Marathon: A Carnival of Human Miscalculation
Held during the St. Louis World’s Fair, the 1904 Olympic Games were an underfunded, disorganized spectacle, and nowhere was this clearer than in the marathon. The race was run in 90-degree heat, over dusty roads, and with no water stations—except for one at mile 11. Officials believed that dehydration might yield useful data on “purposeful athletic suffering” (Lucas, 2000).
Thomas Hicks, who ultimately won the race, was fed a combination of raw egg whites, strychnine (a poison), and brandy by his trainers. He had to be physically carried over the finish line. Another runner collapsed from dust inhalation, another took a car ride part of the way, and a third runner—Felix Carvajal of Cuba—ran in street clothes and paused mid-race to steal peaches from a roadside cart.
If there were a quote to define the 1904 marathon, it might be this from one official: “The race, from start to finish, was a man-killing contest.” The irony, of course, is that it was marketed as a celebration of human athleticism and resilience. Instead, it became a grim joke about endurance, logistics, and poison-as-sports-supplement.
Operation Paul Bunyan: The World’s Most Militarized Tree Removal
In 1976, two American soldiers in the Korean Demilitarized Zone were killed by North Korean troops while trying to trim a poplar tree that was obstructing visibility between checkpoints. The U.S. responded with Operation Paul Bunyan—a massive show of force whose target was, quite literally, the same tree.
The operation featured dozens of military vehicles, over 800 troops, aircraft carriers on standby, B-52 bombers flying overhead, and a team of engineers who—under this intense security umbrella—successfully chopped down the tree (Yoo, 2006). It was the most heavily protected act of arboreal maintenance in modern history.
To emphasize just how seriously the U.S. took the symbolism of “tree justice,” troops arrived with chainsaws and axes in what looked like a lumberjack cosplay version of World War III.
Though the mission avoided further bloodshed, it showcased how geopolitics often plays out in surreal pageants. When the fate of national pride hinges on a tree limb, and the response involves aircraft capable of nuclear payloads, one must marvel at the absurd theatricality of it all.
Napoleon’s Rabbit Hunt: The Emperor is Overrun by Bunnies
After the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to celebrate with a rabbit hunt. His chief of staff, Alexandre Berthier, arranged a grand outing with hundreds of rabbits. But instead of sourcing wild game, Berthier had farmers deliver domestic rabbits—animals not exactly known for their fight-or-flight instincts.
When released, the rabbits did not scatter. They ran toward the Emperor and his men, mistaking them for food sources. Soon, hundreds of rabbits were hopping up to Napoleon, climbing his legs, swarming his generals, and chasing the imperial hunting party back to their carriages. The spectacle was so outlandish that many assumed it was a prank. It was not.
Napoleon—fresh off victories at Austerlitz and Friedland—had just been routed by rabbits. He never lived it down. The event has no official record in his military dispatches, but as one courtier allegedly quipped, “He who had conquered men could not command rabbits” (Markham, 2002).
The Treaty of Waitangi Pen Mishap (1840): Lost in Translation
The Treaty of Waitangi, signed between the British Crown and over 500 Māori chiefs, was meant to ensure peace and sovereignty in New Zealand. The English version ceded sovereignty to the Crown. The Māori version, however, described something closer to a partnership or shared governance.
Why the discrepancy? One reason is that the translator, Henry Williams, was not a legal scholar and had only a missionary’s grasp of the Māori language. Key terms were mistranslated, leading to decades of confusion and conflict (Orange, 2011).
The Crown believed they had secured full authority. The Māori believed they had entered a diplomatic alliance. It was, essentially, the colonial version of clicking “I Agree” without reading the terms and conditions. The consequences were grave, but the miscommunication’s root is darkly comic: one of the most significant treaties in the Southern Hemisphere was based on bad wording and worse assumptions.
The Panic of 1837: A Depression Caused by… Canadian Coins and Cotton
The economic depression known as the Panic of 1837 was triggered by a cascade of banking failures, cotton speculation, and tight British lending. But one of the more surreal contributing factors was the widespread use of unofficial coinage from Canada and private mints. In some U.S. states, people were using coins with British monarchs on them in everyday transactions. This alarmed American politicians, who had just celebrated their freedom from British influence.
Martin Van Buren, who inherited the crisis from Andrew Jackson, tried to fix the problem by emphasizing gold and silver—prompting hoarding, price spikes, and further chaos. One New York newspaper mocked the effort with this jab: “If the people are to eat gold, they must learn to digest it with their conscience.”
Though many lost their livelihoods, the episode reveals the oddly fragile logic of early American finance. The same republic that prided itself on independence was undone, in part, by its reliance on foreign coins, cotton bubbles, and a belief that if something sparkled, it could be trusted.
The Battle of Karansebes: Austria’s Army Fights Itself
In 1788, during the Austro-Turkish War, the Austrian army camped near Karansebes (now in Romania). Some scouts crossed a river to search for Ottoman forces. Instead, they found local alcohol merchants. The men drank heavily, returned drunk, and refused to share their spoils.
A quarrel turned to gunfire. Other units, hearing the shots, assumed an Ottoman attack. Chaos ensued. Cannons were fired, officers shouted conflicting orders, and in the darkness, the army split into factions—each thinking the others were the enemy. The next morning, over 1000 Austrian soldiers were dead or wounded. The Ottomans had not yet arrived.
This self-inflicted debacle, according to military historian Paul Johnson, was “a masterclass in friendly fire and unfriendly drink” (Johnson, 1993). The Battle of Karansebes remains one of the most bizarre examples of a military defeating itself before the enemy even showed up.
Conclusion: History’s Deadpan Sense of Humor
If there is a lesson in all of this, it is not that history is meaningless, but that meaning is rarely as straightforward as the textbooks suggest. Human error, pride, miscommunication, and overreaction turn many serious intentions into farces. We often say “truth is stranger than fiction,” but we might more precisely say: “truth is what happens when people act with certainty and flawed assumptions in equal measure.”
History’s punchlines are not always funny to those living through them. But for those of us trying to learn from the past, perhaps a bit of laughter—tempered by recognition—is not only justified but necessary.
Works Cited
Duffy, E. (2006). Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press.
Johnson, P. (1993). The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815–1830. Harper Perennial.
Long, G. (1981). Australia in the War of 1939–1945: Series One (Army). Australian War Memorial.
Lucas, J. A. (2000). The Modern Olympic Games. Meyer & Meyer Verlag.
Markham, F. (2002). Napoleon and the Fair Sex. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Orange, C. (2011). The Treaty of Waitangi. Bridget Williams Books.
Yoo, T. (2006). “Operation Paul Bunyan.” Joint Forces Quarterly, Issue 42.
