25 Historical Actions That Scream “Go To Hell”
Throughout history, there have been multiple incidents of people’s actions leading to some dire consequences. Whether it’s a tale of revenge, an experiment gone wrong, or using insults to fuel morale in battle, these historical events show that when people take matters into their own hands, great changes can be made to the way things would otherwise have turned out. So when one Redditor asked, “What was the biggest “[s***w] you” in history?”, folks responded, from which we’ve shared a few of the best examples in the gallery below.
#1 Mother Nature’s big FU to the Chinese in response to the Great Sparrow Campaign. The campaign encouraged the Chinese to k**l sparrows by the truckload because supposedly they were eating seeds from planted crops. Well, the campaign was such a success that plant eating insects that the sparrows also ate were able to thrive and totally ruin crops which lead to famine.
Image source: famous_unicorn, Pixabay
#2 The Rats of Tobruk.
Image source: Thagyr, Smith, N
An Australian garrison in Tobruk during WWII that became infamous during an 8 month siege against an armored German/Italian Afrika corps.
The tactics of the soldiers surprised the Germans in that usually when the lines are pieced by armored forces the enemy retreats. Not so the Tobruk Garrison, who instead advanced and attacked the infantry running behind the tanks while letting the armored division over-extend itself without support.
>” I cannot understand you Australians. In Poland , France and Belgium once the tanks got through the soldiers took it for granted they were beaten. But you are like demons. The tanks break through and your infantry keeps fighting.”
Eventually they got a N**i war propaganda specialist to broadcast radio messages in Radio Berlin in an attempt to lower morale and deride the defenders, calling the soldiers in Tobruk ‘cornered rats’ because of their tactics in using tunnel networks to flank and steal supplies, and their supply ships ‘floating scrap iron’.
But rather than be demoralized the Australian’s started calling themselves Rats and their supply ships ‘the scrap iron flotilla’. Because in typical Australian dry humor they figured it is more insulting to the Germans to be beaten back by a bunch of rats. They gave themselves unofficial rat medals with metal from a scrapped German bomber shot down with stolen German guns.
I like to think it was a long 8 months of Australians and their allies holding a giant middle finger to the Axis.
#3 When Julius Cesar was kidnapped by pirates and his men paid 50 talents as a ransom. He went back home , took his time to raise a fleet and go after his kidnappers. He crucified them and got his 50 talents back.
Image source: anon, Henri De Montaut
#4 Olga of Kiev. Some jerks called the Drevlians killed her husband and tried to have her marry their Prince.
Image source: Earlyecho, Mikhail Nesterov
She fooled them into sending their most important men to prepare for the wedding and trapped them in a building and burned them alive. When they tried to apologize she requested pigeons from the citizens and *rigged the birds with sulfur bags*. The birds flew back to their original homes and when they roosted it burned down all of their houses. The official bad b***h of the year 890. She’s also a saint.
#5 George Bernard Shaw: I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend—if you have one. Winston Churchill: Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second—if there is one.
Image source: bullettbailey, Unknown author
#6 Not the biggest, but:
Molotov said he wasn’t bombing Finland, he was bringing them food. In actuality, he was bombing them. Finns got cheeky and called the bombs “Molotov Bread Baskets.” Finns made the Molotov Cocktail as “a drink to go with the bread.”
Image source: yenetruok, Unknown author
A Molotov Cocktail is p much flammable “poor man’s grenade” meant to set someone on fire rather than just flat out k**l them.
It might not be a huge f**k you, but it’s one of my favorite historical facts.
#7 Ferruccio Lamborghini was a rich man owning his company that built tractors, he talked to Ferrari about the imperfections of his car and how to improve them and they basically laughed at a young tractor mechanic trying to tell them about sport cars, so he decided to start making luxury sport cars to compete with Ferrari and thus, the rivalry was born. So i’d say the middle finger of this guy to Ferrari was pretty noticeable.
Image source: ES_Legman, Unknown author
#8 Queen Gorgo of Sparta when asked why only Spartan women were equal to their men: “Because only Spartan women give birth to Spartan men.”.
Image source: iMakeItSeemWeird, vocal
#9 Singapore getting kicked out of Malaysia in 1965, making it the only state in the world ever to gain its independence involuntarily.
There is a video of Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew crying on TV right afterwards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj6iKXMIiOg
Image source: RhinoVanHorn, Mike Enerio
The reason Singapore got kicked out, was that then governor, and ethnic Chinese, Lee Kuan Yew did not agree with the racially discriminating policies put in place by the mostly Malay government. These policies grant Malays significantly more rights than any other of the many ethnicities that live in Malaysia, in an apartheid like manner.
Of course, we know that it went very well for Singapore from then onwards, but back in the day virtually everyone thought that this decision would be the country’s death penalty. I mean, it really wasn’t much more than a Malaria infested swamp in 1965…
The even bigger “f**k you” is that history in Malaysian school books has been rewritten to say that a mutual understanding had been reached and that Singapore left voluntarily. What’s more, historical facts have been “amended” gradually, in order to justify the special rights that ethnic Malays get.
While I am not a Malaysian myself, I have lived in the area for several years now and it griefs me to still see ethnic Chinese and Indians in Malaysia who are forced to keep quiet over political and personal issues, in order to avoid serious consequences.
#10 The invasion of Belgium during WW1 comes to mind.
Image source: Amedais, Unknown author
Basically, the Germans were on a strict timeline and needed to move their massive army through Belgium in order to flank the French defenses along their own border. In order for this to be successful, they were counting on the Belgians kind of just stepping aside and letting them use their roads and rails and bridges and such. After all, the Germans could destroy Belgium in a war with relative ease, but they didn’t have time for that. The Germans asked the Belgians not to sabotage any of the infrastructure so they could pass through and leave them alone.
In response, the Belgians gave a resounding “f**k you”. They blew up the bridges and the tunnels and the rails, and they gave a fantastic resistance against the Germans at a series of forts along their border with Germany. They really f****d s**t up.
#11 Republicans refusing to hold a hearing for President Obama’s supreme court nominee with nearly a year left in his term.
Image source: trench47, Pete Souza
#12 America taking over a huge chunk of Mexico and then naming one of that states New Mexico.
#13 Hannibal crossing the Alps. Rome was not expecting a Carthaginian army to come from that direction especially with elephants. So I guess it’s also the biggest “SURPRISE M**********R” of history as well. Bringing elephants didn’t help much in terms of military might, but it did show Rome that Carthage could deploy it’s most intimidating weapons wherever they damn well pleased.
Image source: Ovaryunderpass, Henri-Paul Motte
#14 The Greeks saying a huge resounding “No” to Mussolini’s ultimatum to allow the axis forces to enter the Greek territory in 1940.It forces admiration,it takes a special kind of badass to say the equivalent of “f**k you ” to Hitler’s minions at that time of history.
Image source: Glacienda, The Archaeological Society at Athens
#15 Not the biggest but still a great “F**k you” was delivered by Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin.
Image source: Ambruster, Samuel Finley Breese Morse
His invention was copied all over the South and 20 years of lawsuits all failed in the Southern courts. He wound up broke. The new south became incredibly wealthy from his invention. That new “empire” felt itself put-upon by the North and decided to become an independent “empire”. Eli Whitney then went and invented inter-changable parts for weapons with assembly lines and allowed the North to quickly arm hundreds of thousands of men with which to crush that would-be empire. He created and crushed an empire.
#16 During the Siege of Tobruk, the Australian soldiers would listen to German propaganda they would pick up on their radios, especially someone they named Lord Haw Haw.
Image source: MiguelHill, wikipedia.org
At the start of the siege, he called them to surrender because they were “caught like rats in a trap” and living in the ground, so the Aussies started calling themselves the Rats of Tobruk. As well, the ships that were supplying Tobruk were old at the time and were described as “piles of scrap iron” so were named the Scrap Iron Flotilla.
The Aussies also pretty much said f**k you to the whole being in a siege thing. They would often have games of cricket going that would only stop during air raids, but keep going during shell fire. They would also go out of the perimeter and sneak into German and Italian camps and steal their artillery and other weapons and would use it against them, becoming known as the “bush artillery”
The Aussies and Brits then went on to deal the Germans with their first defeat on land and by holding Tobruk, allowed Montgomery to stockpile the tanks and weaponry required for the Battle of El Alamein.
#17 Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Famous German general from World War I.
Image source: x31b, Photoatelier Hermann Noack
From his Wikipedia article:
Later, when Hitler offered him the ambassadorship to the Court of St James’s in 1935, he “declined with frigid hauteur.”; the suggestion for the nomination as ambassador to the Court of St James had come from retired Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen during a visit to Berlin. During the 1960s, Charles Miller asked the nephew of a Schutztruppe officer, “I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go f**k himself.” The nephew responded, “That’s right, except that I don’t think he put it that politely.”
Very few people lived through telling Hitler that. But he was a decorated, historic officer. He survived, taking no part in the 2nd World War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Lettow-Vorbeck.
#18 The Mongols were essentially the Borg of the middle ages. They would show up at your city gates with a massive, stinking army of hardened killers and demand that you surrender, be integrated into the Mongol empire and pay tribute.
Image source: hiro11, Karak-Kyzyl
If you didn’t do this immediately, they would simply k**l every person in the city, relentlessly and brutally. The Mongols actually had quotas for how many people each member of the army was responsible for killing. It’s believed that the Mongol Conquests were responsible for the death of over 5% of the world’s population. If you did join the Mongol empire, they were actually pretty tolerant as far as the Middle Ages go.
#19 The reply of the Cossacks, though it is most likely legend. Below is the original response and reply.
Image source: joellhitt, Konstantin Makovsky
Sultan Mehmed IV to the Zaporozhian Cossacks:
As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the sun and moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God Himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians – I command you, the Zaporogian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.
–Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV
Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan:
O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil’s kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are thou, that canst not slay a hedgehog with your naked a**e? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou shallt not, thou son of a whore, make subjects of Christian sons; we have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, f**k thy mother.
Thou Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-f****r of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our d**k. Pig’s snout, mare’s a**e, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw thine own mother!
So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won’t even be herding pigs for the Christians. Now we’ll conclude, for we don’t know the date and don’t own a calendar; the moon’s in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day’s the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our a**e!
– Koshovyi otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.
#20 Henry VIII created his own church when the Catholics told him no for divorce.
Image source: jamesmichael34, After Hans Holbein the Younger
#21 Arlington National Cemetery sits on what used to be Robert E Lee’s estate.
Image source: anon, wikipedia.org
#22 After years of his fathers torment, Joseph Stalin’s son tried to k**l himself in Stalin’s house. When Stalin’s wife informed him of his son’s attempted s*****e by gun, Stalin’s comment, loud enough for his son to hear, was “He can’t even shoot straight!!”
Image source: illegallad, Wolfram von Richthofen
Afterwards his son, who was lieutenant in the red army, got captured by the German army in 1941 and when they tried to trade his release for a field marshall of their own. Stalin responded “I won’t trade a marshall for a lieutenant.”.
#23 Winston Churchill, in the face of what appeared to be utter and inescapable defeat only briefly delayed through the largest evacuation in military history.
Image source: dbcanuck, U.S. Signal Corps
*Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.*
*We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.*
edit: [Here is the audio of his parliamentary address](http://audio.theguardian.tv/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2007/04/20/Churchill.mp3) Above quote starts at 10:30.
EDIT: TLDR; “F**k you Nazis, we’ll sacrifice EVERYTHING to beat you — our lives, our country, our empire, and even if we fail our valour will inspire future civilizations to rise up and defeat your descendants.”.
#24 Anthony McAuliffe was the United States Army general who was the acting division commander of the 101st Airborne Division troops defending Bastogne, Belgium, during World War II’s Battle of the Bulge, famous for his single-word reply of “Nuts!” in response to a German surrender ultimatum.
Image source: manifesto88, U.S. Army
#25 In 1347 the port city of Kaffa in the Crimea was under siege by the Mongols. The Mongols were forced to end the siege when their forces were depleted by the Bubonic plague. Before withdrawing the commander, Jani Beg, ordered the corpses catapulted over the city walls. The plague spread westward across Europe eventually killing 30 to 60 percent of the population.
Image source: toastie2313, I. Columbina
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