Abu Hansa

Coal miner waiting to get in the communal shower at the end of a shift in Gelsenkirchen, Germany in 1958.

In 1932, a group of Australian soldiers and farmers waged an unconventional war against a horde of emus, large flightless birds that were destroying crops and livestock in Western Australia. The Great Emu War, as it was dubbed, was a military failure and a public embarrassment for the Australian government. The soldiers were armed with machine guns and trucks, but they proved to be ineffective against the fast and agile emus, who scattered and regrouped at will. The emus also seemed to have a remarkable ability to survive bullets, as some of them were reported to have taken up to five shots before falling. The soldiers managed to kill only about 250 emus out of an estimated 20,000. The war ended after six weeks, with the emus declared the victors.