Their stories are presented here in precise order of how ridiculous they are.

We've all heard that story of a butterfly that flaps its wings, and through a chain of events triggers a hurricane on the other side of the world. We've always taken that as just some kind of trippy thought experiment for guys to ponder while stoned, but if you look at real history you find entire world events turning on the actions of creatures every bit as insignificant as that butterfly.

7 The Dog that Saved Napoleon

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Today "Waterloo" is synonymous with a massive, cataclysmic defeat. It was the last clash of the Napoleonic Wars and a spectacular end to the career of a man who wanted to rule all of Europe. And it wouldn't have happened if not for a random, unnamed dog.

A few years before all that, things started going downhill for Napoleon (something to do with his deciding to invade Russia, with the mindset of a man going to hunt grizzly bears with a bouquet of freshly picked parsley). After he was roughly cornholed in Russia, Bonaparte was exiled to the small island of Elba.

However, in 1815, Napoleon, being Napoleon, had enough of that shit and slipped past the guards and set sail off the island. But legend has it that during a particularly rough storm at sea, the fleeing Napoleon was thrown overboard. The tale of one of the most important figures in history would have ended right there, had not an unnamed Newfoundland dog plunged into the water to save him.

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Imagine that little tiger is Napoleon.

It sounds like something from a Disney cartoon, but Newfoundlands are known for this (it's probably why one was on the boat in the first place). And, where in a Disney movie this is when Napoleon and the (talking) dog would strike up a friendship that teaches them both about the value of accepting people different from themselves, in real life Napoleon returned to France and started killing people, setting off his famous Hundred Days, a military campaign to regain power.

The final stage of this campaign was the famous Battle of Waterloo where Napoleon's career as a conqueror came to an end once and for all.