In early Joseon, two high-ranking officials once mobilized private troops to fight over a woman.

According to records from December 2, 1407, General Kim U got furious when his former lover, the gisaeng Gahi-a, became Senior General Hwang Sang's concubine, leading to a small-scale armed conflict between their forces.

Neither received heavy punishment, and Gahi-a later ended up becoming a royal concubine for King Taejong.

People fabricated a heresy:

‘A 149-year-old man who died in Yunnan left a prophecy.

A great disaster is coming, and 80% of humanity will perish.

Those who do not believe will go blind, but those who copy and spread this letter will escape disaster.

One copy saves yourself, two copies save your family, and three copies bring great peace.

If you hide this letter, you will face a bloody curse.’

The crime of deluding the public with this chain letter is subject to execution by beheading.

However, this occurred prior to the general amnesty.

— The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, August 3, 1470

Templates from GUP

King Woo, the 32nd ruler of Goryeo, attempted an expedition to the Liaodong region to defy Ming China.

Choe Yeong, who favored the campaign, volunteered to lead it, but King Woo refused to let him leave.

Instead, the king appointed Yi Seong-gye—who had fiercely opposed the expedition—as the supreme commander.

Yi eventually turned the army back, overthrew Goryeo, and founded the Joseon Dynasty.

In the Joseon Dynasty, the average age of passing the highest civil service exam was in the mid-30s.

The exam consisted of two rounds of preliminary tests and three rounds of main tests.

Scholars like Yulgok Yi I, a mid-Joseon intellectual, aced his very first preliminary exam at the age of 13 and went on to rank 1st a total of 9 times by the age of 29.

In the late Joseon period, the government granted tax cuts to local Sogo-gun (reservists) who purchased their own matchlock guns.

However, due to a severe famine in 1672, this benefit was reduced, and it was entirely abolished in 1683 when the state became capable of manufacturing enough firearms on its own.

It has long been said:

‘When Envoy Lee Jeong-gu (Wolsa) entered Ming China, a certain minister invited him to his house on a promised day.

On that day, the minister had urgent official business in the palace, so he instructed his family to hold Lee there and wait for his return.

Lee arrived before breakfast, and the family, conveying the minister’s words, treated him to drink and side dishes.

As the day grew late, Lee expressed his wish to leave, saying it was before his meal.

The family then treated him to rice cakes and fruits, but since he still hadn’t eaten actual rice, he firmly requested to leave.

Fearing he might be starving, the family fed him four or five times throughout the morning.

Yet, he ultimately left on the grounds that it was still before his meal.

Upon returning, the minister heard his family’s account and said with regret:

“It is said that the people of Joseon starve if they do not eat rice. I completely forgot to tell you to serve him rice.”’

— Muo Yeonhaengrok (Record of the Envoy to Beijing), January 21, 1799

Moon Sun-deuk was a merchant who drifted out to sea in 1801 and returned home via Ryukyu and Luzon(Philippines).

He stayed in Ryukyu for 8 months and Luzon for 9 months, finally returning home after 3 years.

Later, he even served as an official interpreter for shipwrecked Filipinos in Joseon.

The Chamoe(oriental melon) is an extraordinary product; from early July through the entire month of August, the cries of 'Buy melons!' never cease outside the doors.

It is said that when melons hit the market, the sales of Korean rice shops plummet by 70%.

Lower-class Koreans eat melons instead of rice and even make bets on melon-eating contests.

The loser has to pay for all the melons eaten by the winner. In such cases, they reportedly gorge themselves on up to 20 melons, which is a massive act of gluttony.

— Korean Caricatures (Joseon Manhwa), Usuda Zanun, 1909

It's 1944, and Imperial Japan is careening toward defeat. That June, American naval forces so decimated their Japanese counterparts in the Battle of the Philippine Sea that American aviators jokingly referred to it as The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The Japanese lost so many planes that they were unable to conduct any effective carrier operations through the rest of the war. Nonetheless, that October, they regrouped their remaining ships to contest the American invasion of the Philippines at The Battle of Leyte Gulf. It became the largest naval battle in history.

For the most part, the battle went as expected. The Americans had too many men, too many ships, and too many planes for the fuel-starved Japanese to possibly contend with. In fact, an American invasion force of 130,000 men had already begun to land on Leyte before the battle even started. The Japanese goal was to break through and destroy their logistical support ships, hampering the invasion and perhaps opening a window to sue for peace. They came dangerously close due to an infamous gaffe by Admiral William "Bull" Halsey.

Halsey had engaged the Japanese Center Force led by Admiral Kurita on October 24th, sinking the massive battleship Musashi in the process. Kurita retreated, and Halsey erroneously assumed that he had taken the Center Force out of action. All the while, the Americans had been searching for the Japanese Northern Force led by Admiral Ozawa, even though Ozawa's aircraft carriers were already an ineffective fighting force and served as no more than decoys. When Halsey's planes finally spotted the Japanese carriers, he mobilized the entire Third Fleet in pursuit, leaving the San Bernardino Strait unguarded.

The problem was that no other Americans knew this. Due to some unclear communication, the other Admirals, as well as the Allied Pacific Command, believed that Halsey had departed with only three carrier groups and left a large surface force designated Task Force 34 to guard the strait.

Having regrouped after Halsey's assault, Kurita slipped his sizeable fleet into the strait uncontested in the early morning of October 25. The only force between him and the vulnerable American troop landings was the woefully ill-equipped Task Force 77.4.3 (a.k.a. Taffy 3), a group more suited for submarine warfare than a massive surface engagement. It consisted of only six escort carriers, three unarmored destroyers, and four destroyer escorts. To give some perspective, Kurita's flagship, the battleship Yamato, displaced more water than all of Taffy 3 combined.

The battle was nothing less than a miracle. Taffy 3 immediately launched all their planes armed with whatever munitions they could carry, supported by the planes of ten additional escort carriers in Taffy 1 and 2. The Americans were aided by the fact that Kurita ordered a general assault, leaving all his ships to formulate their own battle plans. This resulted in a disorganized Japanese effort that allowed the Americans to engage in smaller, separate battles. Some battleships even missed large periods of combat altogether. Kurita, unaware that Halsey had taken the bait, was also unable to identify the escort carriers in his battle plans, leading him to assume that he was again facing the Third Fleet.

Under heavy fire, the destroyer USS Johnston charged straight at the Japanese, drawing attention away from the carriers. Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague then gave the order "small boys attack," sending the destroyers Hoel and Heermann and the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts into the fray. As they approached the Japanese fleet, Lt. Cdr. Robert Copeland of the Samuel B. Roberts didn't mince words. Grabbing a bullhorn, he announced to all hands that this would be "a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected." Though his words were prophetic, the crew was not intimidated. The Roberts later became known as "the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship."

The Johnston managed at first to disable two Japanese cruisers without taking any damage. Her luck ran out when she came under fire from the Yamato, crippling the ship and forcing her to hide under a rain squall. Despite immense damage, the Johnston regrouped for another assault, exchanging gunfire with the cruiser Haguro in the process. After engaging the cruiser Kongo, the Johnston came to the aid of the carrier Gambier Bay, rejoining the Hoel, Heermann and Samuel B. Roberts. Only the Heermann would survive.

With the Gambier Bay having given the order to abandon ship, the Johnston broke off to engage a squadron of five Japanese warships heading for the remaining carriers, supported by aerial forces overhead. She hit the cruiser Yahagi twelve times, which, alongside strafing aircraft, forced the Yahagi to disengage. The Johnston, however, having taken five hits herself, was now defenseless. The four remaining Japanese destroyers concentrated their fire on the listing ship, breaking her up and sinking her. As she rapidly took on water, the crew of the Yukikaze, in awe of her efforts during the battle, saluted the doomed vessel as they sailed past.

The fierce resistance of Taffy 3, which had sunk three cruisers and damaged another beyond repair, reinforced to Kurita that he had engaged the Third Fleet. He had also heard reports of additional carriers steaming to his north, and fearing complete envelopment, Kurita disengaged and retreated. In the end, he had sunk two escort carriers, two destroyers, one destroyer escort, and destroyed a few dozen aircraft. Over one thousand American lives were lost, but they successfully defended the landings.

Halsey's actions faced bitter criticism after the battle. As they monitored the desperate cries for help from Taffy 3, Pacific Command under Admiral Nimitz asked Halsey the location of Task Force 34. However, the communication erroneously kept a meaningless padding at the end of the message used to confuse enemy cryptanalysis. These words, "the world wonders," Halsey mistook as a scathing critique. He broke into sobs of rage on the bridge of his ship, forcing Admiral Robert Carney to confront his lack of discipline. By the time he turned Task Force 34 around, it was too late. They never engaged any enemy under that designation.

In 1859, conflict arose when British and American settlers both occupied the disputed island of San Juan in the Pacific Northwest. An American farmer killed a pig owned by an employee of the Hudson Bay Company, who demanded $100 in compensation. When the farmer offered ten, stating that he shouldn't have to pay because the pig was eating his potatoes, British authorities threatened him with arrest and extradition. The American settlers then called on the local US Army detachment for protection.

General William Harney and Captain George Pickett (yes, that George Pickett), who may or may not have had grander ulterior motives, made the absolutely imbecilic decision to land troops on the island. James Douglas, the British governor of Vancouver who held a grudge against the Americans over the cession of the Oregon territory, responded with the equally imbecilic decision to send the Royal Marines to the island. Realizing the severity of the situation, the British captain Geoffrey Hornby refused Douglas until his superior, Robert Baynes, Admiral of the Royal Navy in the Pacific, arrived. Baynes lauded Hornby for his decision and let the Americans do what they wanted on the island until each respective head of government was notified.

President Buchanan, recognizing from correspondence that Harney was a dribbling idiot, sent the head of the US Army, General Winfield Scott, to negotiate. Scott was already familiar with Harney's buffoonery and was embarrassed, angered, and dumbfounded to find the situation where it was. He and Douglas agreed upon a joint military occupation, but Harney violated the truce when he returned Pickett to the island and claimed that he did not recognize the settlement. He was promptly removed from command and shipped back to St. Louis, which finally resolved the tensions.

During the joint occupation, American and British troops actually got along with each other, and Pickett even became friends with his British counterpart. In 1872, thirteen years after the would-be Pig War, the British ceded the island to the United States following third party arbitration with Germany.

The root cause of the conflict was the failure of both governments to clear up ambiguities surrounding the Oregon Treaty. The treaty described the international maritime border as running through the center of the Georgia Strait, which, due to geography, could have reasonably placed San Juan Island on either the British or American side. As each government had bigger things to worry about at the time, the issue remained unresolved until local tensions threatened war between two major powers--all because of an idiot, hothead general; a bitter, offended governor; and a dispute over a dead pig.