10 bizarre historical events that would break the internet if they happened now

The Harlem Shake. The Dress. Damn Daniel.

We like to think that viral stories are a product of the internet age, but people have been doing weird stuff forever. Before teenagers slipped on banana peels on purpose, they stuffed themselves into phone booths and swallowed goldfish for fun. The only difference is that they couldn't share those shenanigans with the rest of the world at the time.

Here are some of our favorite historical events that would totally break the internet if they happened today:

Mao Zedong jokingly offers to give America 10 million Chinese women in 1973.

In the 1970s, Chairman Mao was somewhat chummy with Henry Kissinger, the national security adviser to President Richard Nixon at the time.

Near the end of the Cold War, Mao was having a chat with Kissinger about possible trade agreements when he brought up the idea that China could give the US 10 million of its female citizens as a gift.

Kissinger replied by calling the idea a "novel proposition," adding, "We will have to study it."

Neither man was serious, but imagine the Twittersphere's backlash if Kim Jong Un and Obama's national-security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, were found laughing it up about that proposition today.

The Straw Hat Riot of 1922 rejects the obligation to wear felt.

At the end of each summer during the early 20th century — generally around September 15 — men would swap their straw Panama hats for more distinguished, though less breathable, felt hats.

If you didn't make the switch, you were reportedly ridiculed and even risked having your straw hat stolen and stomped on. A bit harsher than the no-white-after-Labor Day rule, no?

In 1922, people finally revolted against the fashion policy. Riots broke out for days, and thousands of people fought — many to great injury — over the right to wear the hat of their choosing.

Goldfish swallowing takes over college campuses in the 1930s.

After one enterprising Harvard freshman named Lothrop Withington Jr. swallowed a live fish as a publicity stunt while running for class president, a goldfish-swallowing trend spread among college campuses in the late 1930s.

"Last week Joe College was busy gulping goldfish," Time magazine wrote in 1939. "He garnished it with salt, with mayonnaise or with ketchup, and he chased it with milk, orange juice or soda pop, but one routine did not vary. Each goldfish was gulped alive."

I'm only guessing, but Withington would probably have enjoyed icing his bros if he'd gone to college in 2010.