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The Crazy Plan to Stop Earth’s Rotation and Other Bonkers Schemes

Khalid Elhassan April 29, 2021 36 min

Fear of Soviet ballistic missiles, such as these on parade in Moscow's Red Square, fueled a crazy plan to pause Earth's rotation. Russia Beyond

King Alexander of Greece and his wife, Aspasia Manos. Wikimedia

2. An Unfortunate Brawl With a Barbary Macaque Monkey

The Great Greece plan consisted of expanding the kingdom to encompass all the lands that had once been inhabited by Greeks, going back millennia. The expansion was to come at the expense of the defeated Ottoman Empire, which had been reduced to a rump that is now Turkey. So in 1919, with tacit French and British support, King Alexander ordered an invasion of Turkey, to seize the Ionian coast. Then a monkey intervened and ensured that the king never got to see the end of that adventure.

Barbary macaque monkeys. Julia Mathewson

It began with a visit to the Royal Gardens on September 30^th, 1920. While strolling with his German Shepherd, Fritz, king and canine came across a Barbary macaque monkey. The dog attacked the monkey, which fought back. The king rushed forward to separate the brawling animals, but unbeknownst to him, the monkey had friends. Another monkey arrived at the scene, and seeing what appeared to be the king and a dog ganging up on his pal, joined the fray. He fell upon Alexander, and bit his leg and upper body several times.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.