23. In 1932, Australia went to war with emus, and lost
When World War I veterans returned to Australia, the government rewarded them with farmland. Unfortunately, no one told the local emus these men were heroes. 20,000 of the large, flightless birds feasted on wheat crops, decimating whole farms. The veterans, many of them trained marksmen, couldn’t cope. In 1932, the government sent in the Australian military. However, emus proved to be very smart and surprisingly hard to shoot. It took on average 10 bullets to down a single bird. With no real reduction in the emu population, the Australians surrendered: the emus won the Great Emu War!
