4 of the Strangest Divine Interventions in History

God works in mysterious ways and chooses unusual people to be His messengers. This has been true for thousands of years. In some ways, people know by now that attempting to predict God’s actions or understand His plan is a waste of time and energy. It is human nature, however, to try and understand, or at least explain, the world and what goes on within it. As such, people try to make sense of God’s actions even when they cannot. Sometimes, people feel that they can understand some of the events in which God had an obvious hand. Other times, however, people cannot see how God intervened until they are looking back with the advantage of hindsight. Then, there are events that are a mix of both those feelings. There are events where God is obviously involved, but no one can quite make sense of why He chose to intervene in that specific way. This is in part because people seem to forget that God has a sense of humor. As such, some divine interventions are not the awe inspiring sights that people seem to expect. Instead, they are odd, baffling or downright weird. Here are four of the strangest divine interventions in history.

Battle of the Bees

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Some divine interventions are subtle. A commander decides to wait instead of pressing an attack. Reinforcements manage to make it to the battle much faster than they should have been able to due to unexpectedly favorable winds. A sniper misses a shot they should have had no problem making. Then, there are times when God decides to not bother hiding His intervention. In the Battle of Tanga in World War I, God tossed anything resembling subtlety out the proverbial window.

The Battle of Tanga was the first major battle in the East African theater of the first world war, and British troops vastly outnumbered the Germans attempting to hold modern Tanzania. It should have been an easy victory for the British. Instead, the British were abruptly attacked by a massive swarm of wild African bees. As anyone who has had the misfortune to deal with Killer Bees, African bees’ American cousin, know all too well, retreat did the British minimal good. Soldiers were stung until they were so swollen as to be unrecognizable. One unfortunate soul was stung into unconsciousness, and then stung back into wakefulness. The battle went down as one of the British military’s greatest failures, though, in their defense, most soldiers are trained to fight people and machines, not thousands of tiny insects with an inexplicable grudge.

The Divine Wind

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God is famous for sending storms and winds against those that anger Him. Earthquakes and terrible storms are among the forms of smiting that most people imagine when they picture a wrathful God. Sometimes, however, those storms are the answer to an entire culture’s prayers. Such was the case with 13th century Japan.

In the late 13th century, the Mongols decided that they were not content with conquering large swaths of Asia and the Middle East. They wanted Japan as well. So, the Mongols put together an invasion fleet and set out for the islands just east of their Chinese holdings. They reached Japan and conquered a few settlements on Tsushima and Iki after fierce resistance. As the Mongols pulled back to retrieve reinforcements, they were hit by a typhoon that sank most of their ships.

Seven years later, the Mongols decided to try again. This time, they brought four thousand ships bearing more than 140,000 Mongol warriors. The size of this naval invasion would not be eclipsed until D-Day in 1944. This massive invasion of horse lords, however, was unable to find a safe place to land. As the fleet sailed along the coastline, God dropped a second typhoon on their heads. The fleet was utterly destroyed, and the Mongols decided to leave those islands with such furious weather alone.

Buzz-Killer Blueprints

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Most people do not realize that the Germans were actually in many ways more technologically advanced than the Allies in World War II. Not only did the Nazis manage to create the first jet, they also had early drones on their side in the form of the V-1 buzz bomb. The buzz bomb was a nightmare for the Allies during the Second Battle of Britain. It had no pilot to target, no complex engine and few weak points. It was also faster than most, if not all, Allied aircraft. Fortunately for the free world, a young man named David B. Parkinson was apparently blessed with similar gifts as Joseph of technicolor dream-coat fame.

Shortly after the Dunkirk Miracle, Parkinson dreamed that he was part of a Dutch anti-aircraft gun crew that managed to shoot down nearly ever aircraft in the sky. Parkinson’s imaginary crewmates had him take a close look at the gun. When Parkinson woke up, he was able to recreate the blueprints for the gun as it was driven by the same recording equipment he had been developing as part of his job. Parkinson used the plans he, very literally, dreamed up to create the M-9 electrical anti-aircraft gun with robot detector. A month after the M-9 entered service, more than 90 percent of German buzz bombs were shot down before they could reach their targets.

Hurricane Independence

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If someone had to guess what Washington D.C.’s most common weather problem is, most people would probably say that it is the scorching hot days of summer or perhaps the unpredictable temperatures in the late fall and early winter. Most people would not put hurricanes or tornadoes on that list. Neither did the British in 1814.

In August of 1814, British forces looted Washington, D.C. and burned the capitol of the young American nation. Unfortunately for them, God decided He rather liked this upstart nation that was trying out that democracy thing. Rather than leave things up to chance, God dropped a literal hurricane on top of the British. Apparently deciding this was not enough of a message, that hurricane then spawned a massive tornado, one of only seven to hit D.C. in its entire history. Of those seven tornadoes, three did little more that damage a few trees. The hurricane spawned tornado of 1814 was recorded to rip roofs off buildings, pick up and hurl cannons at terrified soldiers, damage British ships offshore and bury at least thirty Redcoats under the rubble. To add insult to injury, the heavy rains extinguished the fires that the British had started. Unsurprisingly, the British decided to leave Washington not long after God decided to drop a storm straight out of the Old Testament on their heads.