If there is one thing that sets mankind apart from other animals, it's our talent for complex thinking. Well, that and our ability to destroy each other with absolutely anything. Here are ten perfectly ordinary and innocent things, both alive and inanimate, that humans have turned into weapons of terrible destruction. Please, please, PLEASE do not try any of these at home.
The CIA are no strangers to inventive manners of hurting people. From poison darts that cause heart attacks toshoe polish that is supposed to cause beards to fall off, their arsenal is straight out of a cartoon. Perhaps the most ingenious device they've come up with is a mixture of nitric acid and certain other things that explode with deadly force when mixed. The main ingredient of the bomb is something the agent can make in any conditions: His or her own urine, boiled and mixed with the other stuff. As theingredients of the bomb were fairly easy to come by, this explosive disaster provided a lethal weapon the agents could literally produce whenever they needed.
Weapons do not always tear your flesh and grind your bones. In fact, the most terrifying ones may not physically hurt you at all. Instead, they attack the mind.Music is very good at affecting emotions. It has been commonly used in warfare since Biblical times. Joshua realized it's hard to guard your walls effectively when the opponent is playing the tuba, and wore down the defenses of Jericho with his horn section. Later leaders have also used this strategy. Great American military commanders such as George Washington and Andrew Jackson swore by their fearful drum corps. In the Korean War, the Chinese chilled the spines of their US opponents by playing funeral dirges and eerie Hank Williams tunes that made foggy nights even scarier. Nazi Germany enjoyed musical warfare, too. They lifted their own troops' spirits by playing 'Aryan' classical music such as the Ride of the Valkyries. Meanwhile, theAllied forces got an earful of popular hits of the era, carefully rearranged to cause distress with new lyrics that praised the Nazis and spat on the Allied forces (for instance, the popular tune 'The Sheik of Araby' became 'I'm Afraid of Germany').
When things got serious between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939, no one could have guessed that the Finns could hold their gigantic neighbor at bay. Still, that's exactly what happened in the Winter War. Empty liquor bottles played a large part in the Finns' efforts. They filled them with a napalm-like mixture of gasoline and motor oil, improvised a lighting wick from alcohol-soaked cloth and threw them at the enemy. The results were usually a massive fireball and an extremely, if briefly, surprised enemy.
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This improvised projectile was called aMolotov cocktail after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who had played a large part in starting the war.Mr. Molotov did not like the name. Presumably, the Russian soldiers on the receiving end of the weapon liked it even less.
Poland is not known for its prowess in World War II, mainly because the country got run over by the Nazis before the bell even rang. This is unfair. The Polish resistance (known as the 'Home Army') did a great job fighting Germany throughout the second half of the war, using whatever they could find to create weapons. The Home Army's greatest creation was theKubus Armored Car. They took a battered, old Chevrolet truck and, well, just welded stolen armor and random metal sheets into it until it became a tank. Then, they named their creation 'Kubus' after a fallen comrade and equipped it with machine guns and flamethrowers. The whole process took just 13 days. Kubus was impervious to grenades, machine gun fire and pretty much anything short of an actual panzer. Although it was eventually retired because shrapnel tore its tire, the battle car saw its share of action and left a whole lot of Nazi soldiers rubbing their eyes in disbelief.
Achainlock (also known as 'smiley') is as simple as an improvised weapon can get. It has precisely two parts: One heavy piece of metal (usually a large padlock) and a length of cloth or chain it is tied to. The weapon is operated by swinging it at the enemy like a medieval morning star (a club with a spiked ball attached on a chain). Although it is technically classified as a nonlethal weapon, a properly constructed chainlock can easily break bones and crack skulls. Because it's very cheap and easy to assemble, the chainlock has been adopted by gang members and, sadly, evensome school kids.
Before the Internet came along and cats became celebrities, their roles in various societies were many. From pests to valuable rat hunters to divine creatures, every culture had its stance on the noble creatures. Perhaps the strangest way cats have ever been appreciated was in 16th and 17th Century Europe. There, cats were seen as handysiege weapons. Cats do as they please no matter how many armies are surrounding their hometown, and the enemy occasionally used this to their advantage. They caught cats that lived in the surrounded town or castle, and attached special sacks that contained flammable materials. Then, they set the sacks on fire from behind. To the cat, it would seem as the fire is chasing it. Then, the poor animal would run back in the town and try to hide in a familiar secret spot. Usually, this would be a barn or some similar place,
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where the sack would ignite the hay and start a major fire. This did not usually go well for thecat. Read more:http://listverse.com/2013/03/27/10-ordinary-things-that-can-be-terrifying-weapons/ 10 Ordinary Things That Can Be Terrifying Weapons To read more on this topic click here
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