In 532 AD, the Nika Riots in Constantinople almost toppled Emperor Justinian I. Starting as a chariot race faction dispute, it escalated into a week-long revolt, resulting in thousands of deaths and the city being set ablaze.

In 1856, the residents of the remote island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean sent a petition to the British government, requesting that their island be annexed. Surprisingly, they received no official response for decades.

During World War II, the Great Emu War took place in Australia in 1932. Soldiers armed with machine guns were deployed to cull the emu population damaging crops. The emus proved surprisingly elusive, and the operation was deemed a failure.

In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire due to the high levels of pollution and industrial waste in the water. This event helped spur the environmental movement in the United States, leading to the Clean Water Act and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency.