10 Historical Facts So Amazing They Need Their Own Movies • Our Woven Journey

Are you a history buff who wants to see more historical events captured on the bug screen? You’re not alone. Recently, a Redditor asked, “What historical event has not, but should be, made into a movie?” Redditors responded to deliver this list of historical events that deserve their own films.

Table of Contents

10. Ching Shih

Redditor randomguy987654321 answered, “The life story of Ching Shih. She was a Chinese prostitute that became the deadliest pirate of all time. At the height of her power, she commanded over 800 large ships, 1000 smaller vessels, and over 70,000 pirate crews, comprised of both men and women.”

9. Mariya Oktyabrskaya

Bertbrekfust said, “Mariya Oktyabrskaya sold everything she had to buy a tank and kill Nazis after they killed her husband. If that’s not a baller move worthy of a movie, then I don’t know what is.”

8. The Donner Party

Redditor zippyboy nominated “I always thought a big-budget telling of The Donner Party would be pretty good. Not the low-budget version from 10 years ago (The Donner Party – 2009). I want epic!”

BeSound84 concurred, “This is a dream film. Give it The Revenant quality, and pump it directly into my eyeballs. Also, for anyone who wanted a good thorough book in the Donner Party, The Indifferent Stars Above is fantastic.”

7. The Vikings Invading England

Redditor mukenwalla voted, “The year 1066 when the Vikings invaded England. Then, the Normans invaded England. Massive amounts of drama too.” Vegetable-Double added, “Judging by how important that event was in English and subsequently Western history, I’m surprised they haven’t tried to make a blockbuster movie out of it.”

6. The Egyptian Pyramids

Lyceus_said, “I’d like to see something about the construction of the Egyptian Pyramids. Either Snefru, who built three pyramids during his lifetime, or his son Khufu who built the Great Pyramid.” Redditor marble8888 suggested, “The construction of the pyramids needs a workplace comedy, if anything.”

MycommentsRpointless volunteered, “A TV series in the style of The Office focused on a group that acts as middlemen selling papyrus scrolls to tradesmen and designers working on the pyramids. So you have the whole pyramid project going on in the background, but you never quite get to see how it’s being built.”

5. The Lioness of Brittany

LizHylton volunteered, “The Lioness of Brittany – A medieval woman who led brutal attacks by land and sea against the French king in vengeance for the execution of her husband.”

4. Syndrome K

Grey_Gryphon nominated “Syndrome K. in 1943, a hospital in Rome located next to a Jewish ghetto that let Jews fleeing Nazi raids hide there. The professors in charge admitted Jews under the fake diagnosis of “Syndrome K,” described as a highly contagious and dangerous disease. It successfully kept Nazis out of the quarantine wards and the Jews safe for the duration of the war.”

3. 1904 Olympic Marathon

Hititwitharock admitted, “I need a Coen brothers movie of the 1904 Olympic marathon while sharing interesting facts, including,

Over half of the 32 entrants did not finish the marathon.
The marathon’s first “winner” took his picture with the US President’s daughter. Then it turned out that he cheated by hitching a ride in a car.
The second “winner” had been doped with rat poison and was carried over the finish line by his friends. He would have died on-site if he hadn’t received immediate medical attention.
Multiple runners, including the winners of the previous two years’ Boston Marathons, got lung injuries from dust kicked up by the race officials’ cars.
The fourth-place finisher got sick on the way, having stolen apples that turned out to be rotten from a nearby orchard.
The ninth-place finisher might have placed better if he hadn’t been chased off course by wild dogs.
One of the organizers believed that “purposeful dehydration” would help the runners and had deliberately limited the water sources available to the runners.

2. FedEx Flight 705

Ok_Kinda_Guy shared, “FedEx flight 705 TL: DR – Man tries to hijack a plane to get insurance money to send kids to college. Crew fight back, jet turns into a weapon for them.” they elaborated,”

They continued, “The backstory of the hijacker was a tragedy very unfortunate never fell into his favor. Auburn Calloway was a Stanford graduate who loved his family but couldn’t afford to send his kids to college. So he used his experience as a navy pilot and the location of Memphis to grab a job at FedEx. He was frustrated that his life amounted to only flying airplanes when he could have so much more potential.”

They continued, “Calloway then devised a plan to die in a plane crash to send his insurance money to his ex-wife so his kids could go to college. He loaded a speargun into a guitar case, got on board, and acquainted with the crew. However, the flight crew fought back, many were injured, and Calloway was arrested after landing in Memphis.”

1. The Long Way Home

Redditor bigred49342 gave the number one answer with nearly 23k votes. They stated, “The story of the Pan Am flight that got caught in New Zealand at the start of WWII and couldn’t fly back home by going east because it was too dangerous.”

They continued, “So instead, they took their flying boat and flew west on routes they had to figure out from maps pulled from borrowed encyclopedias, dodging the Japanese and trying to find enough fuel to keep the plane going. The whole thing took months, culminating in taking off from a river in the Congo and skimming through a canyon to build up speed since they were too heavy even to have a chance of crossing the Atlantic.”

Finally, they concluded, “The whole thing is tailor-made for TV or a Film. There’s a fantastic book about the story called The Long Way Home, and Ed Dover wrote it with the flight captain.”

What do you think? Did Reddit get this right, or are there other historical events you’d care to see come to the big screen? Check out these twelve historical romance reads.

More Articles From Our Woven Journey’s Network:

This article originally appeared on Wealth of Geeks and was syndicated by Our Woven Journey.

This article was produced by Wealth of Geeks and syndicated by Our Woven Journey.

Featured Image Credit: RgStudio | Canva