Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

The Biggest 'Trolls' In All Of History

Nothing gets people riled up more than a troll.

No, not the kind of trolls in fairy tales who live under bridges, or the iconic dolls with neon hair and groovy clothing.

But the kind of trolls who say or do something purely to instigate conflict and rile people up.

Today, trolling is most commonly associated with the internet and social media, where people make a habit of writing rude, sometimes offensive comments purely intending to get a rise out of people.

But trolling has been around long before the days of Facebook or Instagram.


Redditor drbdrbdr was eager to hear who people considered to be the most notorious troll in the history of mankind, leading them to ask:
"Who is the biggest troll in history?"

Amazing What Good Pictures Can Do...

"The guy who opened a fake restaurant in London using Google reviews and his back garden and shed with microwave meals."- dirtyaccomplice

Just... Why?!?

"April fools day 1974 when a man burned 70 rubber tires on a dormant volcano in Alaska!"

"This has to be up there."

"He waited 3 years to get a helicopter to fly the tires to the top to get a picture perfect condition."

"He even got the coast guard called out too."- jgpdvs

Team Salieri?

"Mozart didn’t like this singer so much that he wrote a piece for her with high and low notes constantly because he noticed that when she hit low notes her chin went to her chest and when she hit high notes her head would fling back."

"So it was like she was bobbing like a chicken."- danielokane

Giphy

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs!

"In the 30s-40s BBC did an April fools broadcast where they told people how spaghetti was made, on trees.'

"They literally showed fake spaghetti trees and since not many people in that time knew how spaghetti was made, lots of people believed it."- Voicedtunic

He Made A Mockery Of All Of Them!

"There was a Prussian, I can't remember his name, who managed to make an officer's uniform out of scraps of clothing."

"He used it to convince a few guards on patrol to follow him into a government building, ordered the arrest of the man in charge, confiscated all the money personally, sent the arrested man to Berlin calming it was all on order of the King."

"He then ditched the uniformed, got on a train to Berlin him and managed to beat the guards there."

"He then sat back and watched the absolute confusion happen."

"The guy was eventually arrested but the public turned him into a celebrity and his actions into a play that was performed all over Germany."

"He wasn't incarcerated for long and after his release he lived an easy life from there on."- TheGermanMofo

Outsmarting The Enemy

"Technically this isn't a troll since it was serving a purpose, but Admiral Nelson was escaping a French fleet when a man fell overboard."

"It was Nelson's policy of never leaving anyone behind so he turned his ship around to go pick him up."

"The French saw his ship turn back toward them, assumed he had reinforcements coming beyond the horizon, so they turned and ran."- ScarletCaptain

Episode 18 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy

That's Quite A Grudge...

"I was thinking more like the mortician who patented the automatic telephone switch 3 years after finding out his rival's wife worked as a telephone operator and would reroute calls asking for his funeral parlor to her husbands."

"The guy put a whole worldwide workforce out of work for one person's actions."- ThrowawayKarensBane

By Hook Or By Crook...

"Theodore Hook."

"The perpetrator of the Berners Street hoax in London in 1810 in which Hook sent thousands of letters summoning all manners of various vendors and service people and physicians and dignitaries and others to all come to one random person’s home."

'Literally shutting down a large part of London as they all descended upon the same address throughout the day, all while Hook and a friend sat watching from a house across the street, presumably laughing their a**es off the whole time."- VictorBlimpmuscle

Reverse Psychology

"In China there was the war of the three kingdoms."

"The Wei, Shu, and Wu."

"Two of their armies met in battle and the smaller was out of arrows."

"They were separated by a river."

"One night, the leader of the smaller army stocked the front of their boats/rafts with straw bales and moved toward the opposing army over the river."

"They were immediately hailed with arrows."

"The men ducked behind the straw while the arrows stuck in the straw, undamaged."

"They then sailed away and yelled."

"''We thank you for the arrows, we will return them shortly!"''

"This may just be a tall tale from Romance of the Three Kingdoms but it may be true."- Mr_Caterpillar

You Got It Animation GIF by SWR KindernetzGiphy

Generally speaking, these were deliberate acts of malice, which served no other purpose than to baffle and infuriate the public.

Although, one can't help but wonder if all of these so-called trolls had an ulterior motive.

Deep down, they must have known that these duplicitous pranks would ensure that people would remember their name, or at the very least their actions, for a very long time.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Linda McMahon; a PSP console
Taylor Hill/WireImage; Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images

Education Secretary Linda McMahon Gets Epically Schooled After Sharing Mind-Boggling Tweet About The PSP Console

Education Secretary and former WWE co-founder Linda McMahon was swiftly fact-checked after she posted an odd tweet about how the PlayStation Portable (PSP) console was "the beginning of life on the go."

One wonders why the Education Secretary would post something to mark the 21st anniversary of the system’s 2005 launch in the United States. At the time, the device received a mixed reception, with critics pointing to its underwhelming battery life and lackluster graphics.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @connortalkslol's TikTok video
@connortalkslol/TikTok

Guy Admits His Ignorance After Girlfriend Educates Him On What Really Happens During Menstruation—And He's Horrified

Women's health should be much more common knowledge than it is, but many subjects related to women—especially menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth—are still considered pretty "taboo" subjects in public spaces, in shared educational spaces, and, of course, among men.

That's why there are so many men like TikToker @connortalkslol who only start finding out what menstruation really is and what the cycle entails when they go looking for the information themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from Dr. Suneel Dhand, MD's TikTok video
@dr.suneel.dhand.md/TikTok

Doctor Shares Eerie Warning Why You Should Never Leave Your Loved Ones Alone In The Hospital—And Yikes

It's easy for us to assume that when we rush one of our loved ones to the doctor's office or the emergency room, that we have done our part and the doctors will take it from there.

But Dr. Suneel Dhand, MD, argued in a multi-part series on X that a person's role in their loved one's healthcare has only just begun when they walk through the hospital's doors, making them one of their loved one's most vital advocates.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @leathernecklilah's TikTok video
@leathernecklilah/TikTok

Fed-Up Woman Tearfully Asks For Advice After Neighbor Refuses To Stop Dog From Killing Her Chickens

Having a homestead isn't all cozy videos, cuddly chickens, and freshly baked bread. It comes with hard decisions about animal health and protection, even if that means discussing another animal's life.

Homesteader and TikToker @leathernecklilah had a positive relationship with her neighbor, who owned all of the land around her property, until her neighbor's dog started using her property as its own personal killing station.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @oujibug's TikTok video
@oujibug/TikTok

Woman Goes To ER With Leg Pain Only For Doctors To Wonder How She's Even Still Alive

Imagine not being able to sleep for several days because of terrible leg pain and finally deciding to finally go to the emergency room for help, only to discover that the leg pain was a sign of something much, much worse.

As she would detail in a later TikTok, TikToker @oujibug had been experiencing a series of symptoms that she ignored because of the costs she was afraid of accruing by seeing her doctor, including dehydration, frequent urination, skin irritation, dramatic weight loss, and eventually, her leg pain.

Keep ReadingShow less