10 Historical Facts They Don't Teach You At School

10. Shooting The Sh*t

Article lead image
Adam Cuerden [Attribution, Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Should most of the human population ever find themselves in the throes of war, most of the human population will probably have a pants-related accident on the battlefield. It's no surprise to learn, then, that soldiers defending both Old Glory and the Stars and Bars in the American Civil War felt the need to make bum chocolate at the most inopportune times.

Praise the lord for one utterly bizarre ruling that forbid killing anyone (even if they were, y'know, about to kill you too) if they were using those bloody battle lands as a portable toilet. That's right: soldiers from both the Confederate Army and the Union had to play a waiting game if the enemy was going about their private business.

The actual wording used was that shooting was "forbade while attending to the imperative calls of nature". All is fair in love, war and sh*tting doesn't have quite as nice a ring to it. No pun intended, honest. The world is a weird, weird place at times.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.