The Great Emu War of 1932 happened in Western Australia during the Great Depression. After World War I the Australian government encouraged veterans to become farmers. They gave them land to farm. They mostly grew wheat.. These farmers had a tough time. They did not get money for their crops and the weather was very harsh. Then in 1932 a big problem came up.
Around 20,000 emus moved inland after they had babies. The emus went into the farms looking for food and water. They damaged the wheat fields. Broke the fences. This was a problem for the farmers who were already struggling to make money.
The farmers were very frustrated. They asked the Australian government for help. The government sent soldiers with machine guns to try and control the emus. At first they thought it would be easy.. The emus were very hard to catch. They moved fast and they went in different directions. The soldiers tried to shoot them. The emus were too quick. In one try the soldiers shot at a big group of emus but they ran away before the soldiers could hit them.
The battle did not last long. It only lasted a few weeks and it did not work very well. Some emus were killed. Thousands of emus were still alive.
It was very embarrassing for the government. People around the world laughed at the idea of soldiers fighting birds. Eventually the government stopped the operation. After that the farmers used fences. Rewards to control the emus instead of using the military.
The vampire myth has roots in Eastern and Central Europe. In the 18th centuries vampire stories became very popular in places like Serbia and Romania. People thought that some dead people could come back from the grave and make the living sick and take their life away. They believed this because they did not understand what happened to the body after death and education was not easy to get.
Now we know what happens when a body decomposes, back then people thought it was supernatural. When a body breaks down the body may release fluids, which made people think the dead person had just drunk blood.
Disease also played a role in the vampire myth. Before we had medicine illnesses would spread quickly. People did not know why. Therefore, when several people got sick after one person died they looked for a reason which often resulted in blaming the person who has passed away first. This belief made people panic. They would open graves and check the bodies. If a body looked too fresh they would stake it. Burn it or bury it in a different way to prevent it from coming back.
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