The Emu War, the Pig War, and Other Times History Lost the Plot

Setup: In 1932, Australian farmers in Western Australia asked the government for help with an emu problem. Thousands of the large, fast birds were eating crops and damaging fences, so the government sent soldiers armed with Lewis machine guns.

Escalation: The soldiers discovered that emus were difficult targets. The birds scattered when approached, ran at surprising speed, and absorbed the general concept of military strategy without having attended a meeting. One early burst reportedly brought down only a few birds. The operation continued for several weeks, using roughly 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

Punchline: The government eventually withdrew the soldiers. The official report described the birds as having “withstood” machine-gun fire. Australia had, for a brief period, lost a war to poultry that could not fly.

Setup: In 1859, an American farmer on San Juan Island found a pig rooting around in his garden. He shot it. This was not the first time a pig had made a poor entrance, but it was the first time one helped trigger an international crisis.

Escalation: The farmer and the pig’s owner disagreed over compensation, and the dispute widened into a quarrel over which country controlled the island. American and British troops arrived. Camps were established. Guns were positioned. Diplomats began discussing a territorial dispute whose original evidence had four legs and a taste for potatoes.

Punchline: The confrontation became known as the Pig War. There was one confirmed casualty, and it was the pig.

Setup: In the 1950s, public-health officials in Borneo tried to control malaria by spraying villages with DDT. The plan worked on mosquitoes, at least in the narrow sense of the word.

Escalation: The insecticide also poisoned many of the local cockroaches. The poisoned cockroaches were eaten by geckos, which were eaten by cats. As the cat population declined, rats multiplied, bringing the possibility of a new outbreak of disease. Officials then organized a remarkable rescue mission under the name Operation Cat Drop.

Punchline: Cats were packed into parachute containers and dropped into the jungle. The preferred solution to a pesticide-created rat problem was, apparently, rain from above.

This Week in Weird History: The emus kept the medals, the pig got the memorial, and the cats got parachutes.