Not actual trolls, though honestly, sometimes I think it would be better to deal with a dolt with a club hiding under a bridge that someone who is just a little too clever for their own good.
It turns out that human beings haven’t changed all that much over the centuries, because there have always been people willing to screw with other people for selfish reasons, dubious reasons, or really no reason at all.
Here are 15 who really stand out.
15. France during the war in general.
France Building a Fake Paris in WWI to confuse german bomber pilots…
14. Not real history, but still.
The guy who decided to put an ice troll 3/4 the way up the path to High Hrothgar.
13. He was…not a good man. But smart.
Don’t know if this has been said, but Stalin.
He convicted his closest friends of treason, then had them sentenced to death.
Later on, they were blindfolded and awaiting the firing squad’s bullets.
The squad fired- blanks. Stalin pulled the blindfolds off and said “gotcha”.
Legend.
12. Can we do a collective murder?
The guy that sent the first spam email.
On May 3, 1978, Gary Thuerk sent the first spam email on ARPANET, marketing the Decisystem-20 family of office computers.
He succeeded in annoying many people, and the governing authorities even started a crackdown, stating: “Nobody should be allowed to send a message with a header that long, no matter what it is about.”
Thuerk didn’t know it at the time, but he created a new type of email.
11. Franklin ftw.
Benjamin Franklin vs Leeds
Titan’s father, Daniel Leeds, was a devout Quaker who fell out with the local Quaker community when he began publishing the almanac in 1687. Daniel Leeds turned over publication to his son, Titan, in 1716. The American Almanack pre-dated Franklin’s almanac.
Franklin used the first edition of his almanac to promote the hoax prediction of Leeds’s death (Oct. 17, 1733, 3:29 P.M., at the very instant of the conjunction of the Sun and Mercury), and encouraged his readers to buy next year’s edition of Poor Richard’s Almanac to see if Franklin was right as a publicity stunt and attempt to drive Titan Leeds’s American Almanack out of business.[1]
When the date of Leeds’ supposed passing had come and gone, Franklin published Leeds’s obituary anyway. When challenged by the very much alive Leeds, Franklin insisted that Leeds had in fact died, but that he was being impersonated by an inferior publisher. When Leeds actually died in 1738, Franklin publicly commended the impostors for ending their charade.
10. He wasn’t the best.
Theodore Roosevelt
He got shot, went on a 1 hour speech mocking his assassin and then went to hospital.
9. The Russians and propaganda.
This will be buried, but Sergei Korolev.
The dude was getting frustrated with the Soviet government because they weren’t interested in funding his space exploration projects, so he got his propaganda group to publish articles about how Russia was getting close to sending something into space.
As expected, the US took the bait and started working on their satellite program, and the Soviet government freaked out when they saw the US doing that, so they funded Korolev’s projects.
He and his group played them good.
8. When you think about it that way…
Michelangelo without a doubt.
This man was hired to paint a chapel and put more d**ks and a**es on it than you ever did see.
7. That’s a huge time investment.
George Psalmanazar- a blond-haired, blue-eyed Frenchman who pretended he a royal from the island of Formosa (now modern-day Taiwan).
Came up with his own fake religion, diet, and language (with f**king syntax) that he taught in universities across Europe. This was in the 17th century.
6. The Russians, period.
Russians, and how they continuously retreated when Napoleon tried to attack them, resulting him giving up due to the situations his army was facing, like disease.
5. Yes. Bless.
The employee at the Four Seasons landscape that took the reservation for the Trump campaign without asking questions.
Clearly they knew it was a mistake… not like their company is a well known place for Presidential speeches.
4. It scared the sh%t out of people.
Orson Welles did a radio play that told people the Martians were invading.
The next day he told everyone that his play had freaked out millions of people, when it was a few dozen at most.
3. Lots of good biblical examples.
The prophet Elijah heckled the priests of Baal because their god would not set fire to their sacrifice.
IIRC, the Bible says the priests of Baal prayed all day while Elijah heckled them.
2. Some people will buy anything.
Who ever told people to rush Area 51.
This dude caused US military personal to have Naruto running explained to them.
F**k man, that would for sure be something I demand be in my obituary.
1. Not one person, but many.
Those guys that wrote “kilroy was here” during WW2
I want to keep thinking of more, because these stories are great.
Tell us in the comments if you’ve got someone in mind that’s not on this list!
