Historic Duels that put the Wild West to Shame

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We've all seen the movies. Two cowboys meet at sundown across the street from one another, hands hovering anxiously above their holsters as a tumbleweed bounces by and a distant flutist plays suspenseful music. Then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the men draw their cattleman revolvers and fire. But believe it or not, this heavily romanticized Hollywood version of a duel doesn't even come close to competing with how absurd real world duels have been in history! In this video, we'll cover a blunderbuss duel that takes place in the clouds of Paris, a claustrophobic knife fight in a carriage with no means of escape, and a duel between nobles over who's estate had the most birds!

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Sources:

Balloon Duel:

Carriage Duel:

Duel over Birds:

[MeterLP]

The two dudes who got into the duel balloons as seconds are either the most loyal bros in history or were not told how the duel worked.

[iainballas]

I was once challenged to a duel on the street. It was over a parking space. After an hour and a half, the police broke it up, and the wind blew most of our Yu-gi-Oh Cards away, so... to this day, we both claim victory.

[GaldirEonai]

One of my favorite silly duel stories is when Miyamoto Musashi showed up to one late, with a bad hangover and _having forgotten his actual sword._ He instead picked up a wooden oar from the boat he'd rowed to the duel site, beat his opponent (who did have a sword) to death with it and then wandered off again, presumably to find more booze.

[Confused_surprise]

As a french man myself, I can assure you that we are indeed very experienced with wine, cheese, and joyful cartoonish massacres !
Also, the very fact that you added the word "putain" means a lot to me. Thank you
12/10 stars

[ilee]

Finally some content that simultaneously wants me to jump of a bridge aaand live forever. These facts are something else

[johnryoung]

Another strange duel was the topless, bare-breasted duel with rapiers between Princess Pauline von Metternich and Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg because of a disagreement over some flower arrangements.

[basbarnes]

"Wait 'till you see my spin move!" Literally killed me XD

[gd_]

“I don’t understand why, in this day and age, two consenting adults can’t solve their differences through a duel”
- My amazing friend

[MerijnH]

I love the natural 1 roll on the first shot at the balloon fight. Because there's no situation ridiculous enough to happen in any random DnD party at some point. Duelling in a balloon is just the tip of the iceberg of ttrpg

[ustanik]

There's a movie about French duelists called "Duelists" about two guys in Napoleonic times fighting multiple duels over the course of over 30 years, the reason being ofcourse some minor offence taken verbally.

[UberMan]

Jay here seeks to gain a distinct advantage over other humorous historical channels, in that he can *kind of* pronounce French names and words. He also knows what "putain" means. 👍

[Shaun_Jones]

I think some of the duels that never happened are the most interesting. People who disapproved of the practice would sometimes make outlandish choices of weapons to make their opponent back down. One man choose to duel with field artillery, and a story from just after WWII states that he choose tanks. Abraham Lincoln is said to have requested cow pies as a form of protest against dueling.

[chesthoIe]

And that is where the French expression, "Couldn't hit an enormous bag from another enormous bag pulled right up to the first enormous bag, " comes from.

[trygveplaustrum]

*I am proper chuffed that Blue Jay would talk about a duel between two people who mass murdered birds.*

[JohnDiceAcademy]

The image of two grown men pointing downvotes at each other is instantly iconic.

[ItzRetz]

Are you a voice actor or get any kind of formal training? Because I love your voice acting! It's so good, you can convey emotion through your voice so well, and you're good at a lot of accents.

[tamaraholloway]

I just learned 2 of my ancestors were in separate duels. One was killed when a sudden duel was thrust on him, a Dr, by a soldier. He missed, the soldier then ran up and shot him point blank in the chest.
The second was Robert Crain, of the Sandbar Duel/Brawl involving the Bowie knife guy.

[robertwilloughby]

My favourite story is about a duel in a pitch black cellar with carpenters axes. Now, carpenters axes are seriously heavy, and if you're not used to them you're not going to lift it. So, after a few ineffective attempted swings at each other, they mutually collapsed in laughter and declared honour satisfied.

[ZillyWhale]

Early duels were done in the narrow hallways of castles. This is why you cannot move to the side while fencing.


Read the entire thread to get some awesome information!

[HitchcockJohn]

Not quite a duel but I know one story about a very silly argument that ended up having an unexpected impact:

In 1878, two rich race track enthusiasts got into a debate about how horses run. One claimed that while galloping they can lift all four legs off the ground, while the other insisted they couldn't. So they hired a photographer named Edwin Muybridge to find a way to figure out a way to determine for sure. Muybridge came up with a method that involved setting up a series of camera along a track and timing each of them to go off while a horse ran past them. He was then able to develop the photos and found that a horse can indeed lift all four legs off the ground while galloping.

It actually became a pretty big deal because Muybridge's attempt to solve a really pointless argument inspired him to experiment with series photography as a way of capturing motion, which would eventually inspire early film technology in the late 19th and early 20th century.