Feuds Historical Figures Had Over Petty Things

In the mid-1800s, Mexico was a rather chaotic place as it found its footing after separating from Spain. It had roughly 20 different presidents in 20 years, and with each change of power, passionate supporters of the winners and losers would fight against each other. Mexican bystanders got caught up in the fight, and much of their property was destroyed, including the pastry shop of one Monsieur Remontel, a French citizen. He asked for reparations from the Mexican government, but it essentially shrugged him off. So, Remontel upped his request - going instead to King Louis Philippe of France. The king sent Baron Antoine-Louis Deffaudis (and a military ship) to Mexico to demand payment for Remontel and other French subjects who lost property or goods. The new Mexican president refused, and an actual conflict known as the Pastry War broke out between Mexico and France.

Queen Victoria's love for her husband, Prince Albert, is legendary. It's no surprise then that after his untimely passing in 1861 at age 42, the queen was inconsolable. (It's said she even slept with a cast of her late husband's hand). At the time, the couple's youngest child Beatrice was only 4 years old. While she likely didn't understand all that was happening, she quickly became a support system for the grieving queen. As the princess grew up, Victoria relied on her more and more - even dismissing ideas of Beatrice getting married, so she could continue living with Victoria. However, after Beatrice met Henry of Battenberg, a German prince, she was smitten, and told her mother she was going to marry him. In response, Victoria didn't speak to her daughter for months, only communicating via written notes. Finally, Victoria gave her approval when Henry and Beatrice agreed to live with Victoria. The couple married in July 1885.

Mark Twain liked to make his opinions known on all subjects under the sun. But the topic he was perhaps the most obsessed and angered with was the US Postal Service. And it wasn't like Twain just wrote one bad review of a post office. He spent decades calling out the postal service – for everything from being too expensive to being outraged with a new regulation that senders had to list a street and state (as opposed to just an address and city). Twain also harbored what can only be described as a personal vendetta against specific postal workers, even mocking their responses when they sent him letters trying to explain their new regulations. In quite an ironic choice, the US Postal Service came out with a commemorative postage stamp of Mark Twain in 2011, in honor of his contributions to American literature.

It makes sense that much paranoia existed in Germany in the 1940s (especially when you were on the side of the Third Reich). But Rudolf “Rudi” Dassler took it to another level. While serving in the German military, he became obsessed with the idea that his brother, Adolf “Adi” Dassler, was working to oust him out of their shoe company, Gebrüder Dassler ("Dassler Brothers"). Rudi was so worried, in fact, that he went AWOL in an attempt to check in on the business. This was, of course, a very dangerous thing to do as a Nazi soldier. Apparently some bad blood was already brewing, because after WWII, the Dasslers truly turned against each other - each trying to make the other look more pro-Nazi than he actually was. Ultimately, neither brother was charged for his role in the conflict, but they had officially had enough of each other. So, they split their company. Adi stayed on one side of the river in their hometown of Herzogenaurach with his factory, and renamed his company Adidas. Rudi took up shop across the river and called his company Ruda, which he later changed to Puma. It's said the two brothers likely never spoke again.

It could be argued that no two actresses liked each other less than Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The feud apparently went all the way back to 1933, when Davis had her first starring role in a movie. Warner Brothers had a whole publicity campaign slated for Ex-Lady, which would be vital to the success of the film. Unfortunately for them, the campaign was set to begin the same day Crawford's divorce from Douglas Fairbanks Jr. went public. This was huge news for the tabloids, and Davis's film was relegated to a tiny paragraph. (Spoiler: the movie didn't do well.) In 1935, Davis starred in Dangerous with actor Franchot Tone. She fell hard for him, yet it seems he fell for Crawford. The two soon married, and Davis later allegedly said of Crawford: She took him from me. She did it coldly, deliberately and with complete ruthlessness. While Davis was always more vocal in her hatred for Crawford, there seemed to be bad blood all around.

“Prank” is used a little loosely here - we can kind of understand why someone might hold a grudge after this one. William the Conqueror had three sons; in birth order, they were Robert, William Rufus, and Henry. Apparently Robert did something that irked the younger two so much that they dumped a full chamber pot over his head. He was so outraged after his father did nothing to discipline his brothers that he attempted to attack the castle of Rouen in Normandy, France. He failed. After William the Conqueror's 1087 passing, William Rufus was named king - not Robert. However, the reign ended in 1100, when a wayward arrow on a hunting trip cut short his life. Some people speculate, however, that it may have been plotted by his brother Henry, who took the throne after the demise of William Rufus. Robert, just returning from fighting a crusade in the Holy Land, tried to take back the crown in 1101, but failed. After several more years of Robert causing trouble for his brother, Henry imprisoned Robert in England's Devizes Castle for 20 years, followed by eight more at Cardiff Castle in Wales, where he passed in 1134.

While some feuds can cool over the years, the hatred between Othniel Charles “O.C.” Marsh And Edward Drinker “E. D.” Cope only seemed to intensify over the decades. The up-and-coming paleontologists were initially friends, even naming species they found after each other. However, in 1868, all that changed when Cope decided to show Marsh a fossil quarry in New Jersey. While Cope was excited to see what new treasures lay in the ground, Marsh made a deal behind Cope's back that any fossils found should be sent directly to him at Yale. This set off a seemingly never-ending vendetta of one-upmanship for the rest of their careers, which came to be known as the Bone Wars. As they each became more well-known, they took it up a notch. Cope bought a scientific journal to ensure he got more papers published. Marsh paid spies to watch Cope's dig sites and used his connections to secure a position with the new US Geological Survey. Then, he slashed Cope's federal funding, even attempting to take some of Cope's personal collection of fossils under the guise of the government. From there, Cope held nothing back, including releasing documents accusing Marsh of illicit dealings in his position. The publicity ruined Marsh, who not only was fired, but ironically had to give up much of his personal fossil collection. Both men died nearly broke and with bad reputations. However, it seems their feud did lead to the discovery of dozens of new species that may not have been otherwise found in that time period.

Clovis was famously the first king of the Franks who ruled at the end of the fifth century. Although Clovis was pagan, he was on good terms with some leaders in the Christian church. So, after his troops defeated and plundered a city in Soissons, France, he decided to return the sacred vase of Soissons to a local archbishop. However, as he was receiving the vase from his troops, one of the soldiers stepped out of line and smashed the vase with his ax (as he was reportedly angry at Clovis for not getting to pillage more). The king was calm in the moment. However, a year later, when he was inspecting his troops, he recognized the vase smasher. This time, he didn't let him off easy, as Gregory of Tours recounted: [Clovis said to him] "No one bears his arms so clumsily as thou ; for neither thy spear, nor thy sword, nor thy ax is ready for use." And seizing his ax, he cast it on the ground. And when the soldier had bent a little to pick it up the king raised his hands and crushed his head with his own ax. "Thus," he said, "didst thou to the vase at Soissons."

In 1943, the Allied side very much needed to secure Sicily to work its way through Europe during WWII. The Germans were thrown off the Allies' plan due to Operation Mincemeat, so they weren't expecting thousands of soldiers to show up. Two military leaders were calling the shots of the operation: American General George Patton and British General Bernard Montgomery. They did not like each other, and it quickly became a race of who could reach Messina, Sicily first - the Americans or the Brits. Montgomery seemed to have the upper hand after getting the exclusive rights to one of the few highways on the island (which had previously been promised to the Americans). However, it was Patton who eventually got to Messina first.

Thomas Paine had a complicated relationship with America's founding fathers. He was British, but authored the famous pamphlet Common Sense between 1775-1776, which rallied support for American independence. Upon returning to England, Paine continued writing about his support for independence in countries, including supporting the revolution in France. The English saw this as a threat and tried to arrest him, but he escaped to France first. In France, he was hailed as a hero at first, but later turned to an enemy when he objected to the beheading of the French King Louis XVI. It was a year before James Monroe could get Paine released to the US, and it seems Paine didn't forget it. Upon his release, he wrote a scathing letter about how incompetent George Washington was (partly for not being able to get him out sooner).

In 1962, the Albrecht brothers, Karl and Theo, had a successful grocery store chain in Germany with more than 300 locations. Aldi was generating quite the following, and they wanted to plan their further expansion. When the issue of selling cigarettes came up, they had a heated disagreement. Theo wanted to sell them, while Karl did not. With a store full of other items, you wouldn't think one product would be that big of a deal - but it was. The issue ended up splitting the company, with Theo running Aldi Nord (North) in the northern half of Germany, and Karl running Aldi Sud (South) in the lower half of the country.

Spiritualism is by no means a new reason for ending relationships. And in the 1920s, the afterlife seemed to spell the end of Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's friendship. At first, it seems the idea of life after death bonded the two, as they had both lost close loved ones. While Doyle was further convinced by mediums, Houdini stayed rather hesitant. After a life on the stage, Houdini knew all the tricks that went into a good performance, and he just wasn't sold. The straw that broke the camel's back seemed to be when Doyle's wife, Jean (who claimed to be a medium) tried to channel Houdini's beloved mother. She said she was successful, and that Houdini's mother was the inspiration behind more than 15 pages of automatic writing Jean produced. However, Houdini quickly disregarded this as trickery, as the missive had perfect grammar - and his mother was terrible with grammar. The friendship never recovered, and the men were said not to have resolved their animosity before Houdini's 1926 passing.