There are many weird laws around the world today. The majority of them were passed centuries ago and have never been repealed, although they’re not currently being enforced. Still, many of them are on the books, and plenty of people can unknowingly commit crimes for various odd reasons, though they probably won’t actually get in trouble for it, of course.

While these laws sound ridiculous to us today, we should know they were passed at the time for practical reasons. From restrictions on clothing to what may be done with which animals, here are ten strange laws from around the world and why they were passed.

10 It Is Illegal To Wear A Top Hat In Public
United Kingdom

On January 16, 1797, a man named John Hetherington was apparently the first to wear a top hat in England. Nobody had seen a top hat at that time, so it was scary and controversial. According to a contemporaneous account, people became frightened, children shouted, dogs barked, and women fainted as Hetherington wore his silk hat through London.

The son of one Cordwainer Thomas broke his arm after he was pushed to the floor by the crowd that gathered around Hetherington. Hetherington was arrested and charged with disturbing the King’s peace and inciting a riot for “appearing on the public highway wearing upon his head [ . . . ] a tall structure having a shining lustre, and calculated to frighten timid people.”^[1] He was fined either £50 or £500, depending on which source you consult.

However, Hetherington insisted he had not broken any law. To prevent a repeat, the government of the day passed a law banning citizens from wearing top hats.

9 It Is Illegal For A Moose To Enter A Saloon Via The Sidewalk
Fairbanks, Alaska

It is illegal for a moose to enter a bar through the sidewalk in Fairbanks, Alaska. The law was passed during the early 20th century because a tavern owner was fond of getting his pet moose drunk. The intoxicated moose often went on rampages, destroying property.

City officials soon had enough and passed a law banning moose from public sidewalks, thus meaning that the moose in question could no longer get into the man’s saloon. The tavern owner stopped bringing his moose to his bar but still got it drunk in his home. It is unknown why the town couldn’t simply outlaw getting moose drunk.^[2]

8 It Is Illegal To Enter Parliament With Weapons Or Full Armor
United Kingdom

On October 30, 1313, King Edward II of England passed the Statutum de Defensione Portandi Arma. The law forbids MPs from entering Parliament with weapons or in full armor. The law is still upheld today and has been extended to bulletproof vests.

King Edward II passed the law after “certain individuals” interrupted and disorganized several meetings he’d had with members of Parliament. The king guessed the people were either disgruntled with the war with Scotland or over rumors that he was gay.

Today, coat hangers in the cloakrooms of the British Parliament are modified to hold the swords of members of Parliament. (It is unknown how many MPs currently carry swords.) Meanwhile, visitors and non-parliamentarians theoretically still are allowed to bring weapons and bulletproof vests into Parliament.^[3]

7 It Is Illegal To Die Within Town Limits
Italy, France, Spain, And Norway

Several towns in different countries have permanently or temporarily banned townspeople from dying within town limits.

In 2012, the mayor of Falciano dal Massico, Italy, banned residents from dying within town limits. The mayor issued the ban after the local cemetery became full. He said people would only be allowed to die after a new cemetery had been built. At least two people died while the law was in force.

The town of Bordeaux, France, also issued a similar ban after the local cemetery reached capacity, and the court stopped the town from extending the cemetery. The mayor mentioned that only people with burial plots at the cemetery were allowed to die and promised severe punishment for defaulters.

The town of Lanjaron, Spain, also banned people from dying within town limits for the same reason. The mayor ordered that townspeople pay attention to their health and suspended their deaths until the town acquired new land for a cemetery.

One town with a permanent ban on death is Longyearbyen, Norway, which has banned residents from dying since 1950. The town is considered the world’s most northernmost city (as in having more than 1,000 residents) and is covered in permafrost. The ban was issued after residents discovered that the dead simply froze in the cemetery the instead of decaying. This meant dangerous pathogens could survive in the cadavers and possibly re-infect the living. Old and sick people are usually transported off the island to live their last days.^[4]

6 It Is Illegal To Use Cell Phones In Banks
Argentina, Brazil, And The Philippines

The governments of Rio de Janeiro, Argentina, and the Philippines have passed laws banning customers from using cell phones inside banks. The bans were attempts to reduce bank robberies.

Criminals would sometimes enter banks and monitor customers withdrawing money and leaving the bank. Once a target was spotted, the robber would use his cell phone to instruct other gang members outside the bank to rob the client.

These sort of robberies had been reduced by 23 percent in Rio de Janeiro two years after bank customers were banned from using cell phones and radio transmitters. They were reduced by 20 percent in Argentina. However, some skeptics doubt the efficiency of the ban, since most bank robbers trail the customer and rob them outside the bank.^[5]

The Philippines also proposed a similar law, which was quickly adopted as a rule by banks even before the law was passed. Called the “Cell Phone in Banks Prohibition Act,” the law bans clients from using communication gadgets, including cell phones and laptops, within bank premises.

Bank workers are permitted to use their devices but not in the presence of clients. However, doctors and emergency health personnel are allowed to use their cell phones while responding to emergencies or consulting with patients.

5 It Is Illegal To Use Cell Phones And Many Other Devices
Green Bank, West Virginia

It is illegal to use cell phones, Wi-Fi, radios, or microwaves in the small town of Green Bank, Virginia. This is because the town contains the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope, which is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

The NRAO telescope receives radio signals from faraway stars and galaxies. The signals are often very weak, and nearby radio signals would interfere with its operation. So in 1958, Congress passed a law banning radio devices around the observatory.

The law declared a 16-kilometer (10 mi) radius around the observatory to be radio device-free. The law also mandated that radio wave devices be regulated within a larger 33,700-square kilometer (13,000 mi²) zone that extends into neighboring Pennsylvania and Virginia.^[6]

4 It Was Illegal For Women To Drive
Saudi Arabia

Women were not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia until 2018. To be clear, Saudi Arabia never explicitly formally banned women from driving. However, it did not permit women to drive or get licenses, either. Women who dared to drive were arrested and fined.

Women were not allowed to drive because Saudi Arabia follows the strict Wahhabism version of Islamic law. Wahhabism demands that women cover themselves and be kept separate from men. It also requires every woman to have a male guardian.^[7]

3 It Was Illegal To Eat Swans
United Kingdom

It is illegal to keep or kill mute swans (which are the stereotypical swans most people envision) in the UK. The ban was issued under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, which was passed to protect native animals. However, an earlier law had banned British citizens from eating swans. That law was only repealed in 1998.

Unlike the 1981 act, which is concerned with conservation, the older law was concerned with reserving the swans for the aristocrats. European nobility developed a taste for swans in the 12th century, and it soon spread to England, where it became a symbol of riches and nobility and was frequently served at royal feasts.

In 1482, the British crown was so concerned with protecting its swan supplies from the commoners that it passed a law limiting ownership of swans to the nobles. Hunting, selling, and killing swans attracted harsh punishments, as did did stealing their eggs.

However, the monarchy allowed rich landlords, organizations, and institutions to own swans. Only the richest of the rich could afford the rings used to mark ownership. The crown left their swans untagged, while everybody else tagged theirs. Swan-eating fell out of style by the 20th century.^[8]

2 It Is Illegal To Freely Serve Ketchup In Schools
France

In 2011, France passed a law mandating that sauces (such as ketchup, mayonnaise, and so on) must not be freely accessible to students but served according to various dishes. So, a portion of ketchup can be served with, say, French fries, but students can’t just slather whatever they want with as much ketchup as they want. This sauce mandate was meant to improve the overall dietary quality of meals.

Various news outlets reported this as France banning ketchup in schools altogether.^[9] While some did report that the “ban” was for health reasons, there were also claims that the French government outlawed ketchup in order to promote French dishes and culture.

1 It Is Illegal To Play Online Games Between Midnight And 6:00 AM
South Korea

In 2011, the South Korean government passed the Shutdown Law (also called the Cinderella Act) to curb excessive gaming among teenagers. The law requires that teenagers below the age of 16 to be shut out of online game servers between 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM. However, they can continue to play offline games on their personal consoles, phones, tablets, and laptops.

Game players above 16 are required to access game servers using their social security numbers. The ban was later amended so that teenagers below 16 could play online games past midnight with their parents’ permission.^[10]

What’s fun for one person can be fundamentally appalling to another. In fact, history is full of leisure activities where the offended parties certainly have a point. Standards change, although the following pastimes might make you wonder if the past even had standards.

From slaughtering animals on a moving train to mocking an entire race in motion pictures, it’s amazing (and more than a bit alarming) what used to pass for entertainment. Highlights—or shall we say lowlights—include a sex-offending skunk, an amusement park mini-city that treated little people like zoo animals, and a chart-topping song extolling the virtues of roofies.

10 Poor Tours: An International Slum-sation

Following the Industrial Revolution, late 19th-century London was among the Western world’s most economically imbalanced cities. In the twilight of the Victorian Era, East London in particular was impoverished and overflowing with working-class natives as well as Irish, Eastern European, and Jewish immigrants.

Across town, fabulously wealthy residents were just a carriage ride away, and they were intrigued by newspaper items describing the desperate state of the slums. And while some were motivated by religious or altruistic reasons, most were mere oglers and cheap thrill-seekers. Many even took voyeuristic vacations, donning disguises and spending a few nights among the poor in squalid tenements.

And then, slumming went international. In 1884, a headline in The New York Times proclaimed: “A Fashionable London Mania Reaches New-York. Slumming Parties to be the Rage This Winter.” For decades to come, well-to-do white New Yorkers spent their ample leisure time touring Harlem, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and other downtrodden neighborhoods.^[1]

In fact, the practice has endured to this day. Now known by such terms as “poorism” and “poverty porn,” touring impoverished areas has become a cottage industry around the world. Debates continue as to whether these constitute well-intending educational experiences or shameful schadenfreude.

9 The Original Drive-By Shooting

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the United States refocused on westward expansion. And to expand west unimpeded, something needed to be done about the Native Americans. One of the strategies involved destroying what, for many Native American tribes, was an irreplaceable lifeblood: the bison.

In short order, the millions of bison roaming the Great Plains were reduced to near-extinction. Not coincidentally, bison pelts had come into fashion, and by the 1880s, over 5,000 hunters were involved in the wholesale slaughter of whole herds. The picture above easily says 1,000 words about the tragedy that transpired.

But perhaps the most sickening part of the already carnivalesque carnage was when railroads started advertising hunting by rail,^[2] which is a nice way of saying “blowing out bison brains from a moving train.” The ads flooded newspapers back east, and in no time, any “adventurous” gentlemen with a few bucks and a rifle could kill a beautiful beast just for fun—strewing the landscape with rotting, unutilized carcasses whose lives weren’t even worth slowing down for.

The spectacle was particularly macabre in instances where a herd would cross rail tracks. Slowing or stopping the train offered nearly point-blank, fish-in-a-barrel shootings that eliminated any already precarious semblance of sport.

8 Insult To Injury: Wild West Shows

History is typically written by those in power, and to the victors go the spoils. The turn-of-the-20th-century American spectacles of traveling Wild West Shows were among the most perverse examples of both. After driving an entire race of people into desperation and destitution, enterprising entertainers such as the celebrated “Buffalo Bill” Cody made them relive their humiliation in fictionalized accounts of white valor and Native American barbarism.^[3]

By the 1880s, the Wild West had been tamed. Native Americans were herded onto desolate reservations whose landscapes looked nothing like their established homes, meaning their ways of life, and ability to support themselves, had been decimated.

Among the few job prospects was playing themselves—or, rather, whitewashed versions of themselves—in traveling shows romanticizing the closing American frontier. Not surprisingly, indigenous peoples were portrayed as unprovoked murderers and thieves and conquered by blameless white heroes in front of packed houses. To an entertained public, the performances, which ran well into the early 1900s, solidified notions of “Indians” as subhuman savages whose fate was fully deserved.

Sadly, many prominent Native Americans were lured into participating, usually as the only means to escape abject poverty. Cody featured Sitting Bull in his show in 1885, and for a competing show, the legendary Geronimo was advertised as “The Worst Indian That Ever Lived”—a typically sensationalist sentiment. He appeared in Cody’s show, as well.

7 The Little Things That Thrill

Along with Steeplechase and Luna Park, Dreamland was among the original three amusement parks that cemented the carnival legacy of New York City’s Coney Island. And though it only operated from 1904 to 1911, Dreamland established itself among the most ambitious entertainment-driven projects ever, well, dreamed up.

Illuminated by an otherworldly one million light bulbs, Dreamland’s imaginative attractions included a gondola ride through a recreated Venice, a train journey through the Swiss Alps, complete with gusts of frosty air, and a twice-daily six-story tenement building fire fought by scores of actors.

But one spectacle stooped really low: Lilliputia, a pint-sized European village where some 300 little people lived full-time.^[4] Also known as the now-offensive “Midget City,” the tiny town was lined with half-size houses stocked with small-scale furniture and even had stables with miniature horses.

Collected from fairs and carnival sideshows across the country, its inhabitants performed in circuses, plays, and even operas for visitors. And since Coney Island is a beach destination, Lilliputia also had a stretch of sand frequented by small sunbathers and decked out with the littlest of lifeguard chairs.

Suffice to say, treating little people like a zoo exhibit would create more than a small stir today.

6 A Star Is Born: Preemie Voyeurism

Dreamland was so odd that it merits twin billing on this list. A short stroll from Lilliputia brought visitors to an attraction even stranger—and whose stars were even smaller. A special-admission sideshow featured premature babies being kept alive by a brand new invention: incubators.^[5]

The dazzling devices were the brainchild of Dr. Martin Couney, who, upon developing the lifesaving contraption, realized that the clinical operating costs were impossibly prohibitive. Charging goo-goo gaga-ing gawkers an extra 25 cents (about $7 in today’s money) helped fund the facility.

Like its residents, the incubator installation was ahead of its time: When the exhibit opened in 1903, premature babies were considered genetically inferior and, from a medical standpoint, lost causes doomed to die. Couney’s invention disproved this assumption, showing that, with proper care, babies born early could indeed develop into healthy children.

Although the spectacle was shunned by the medical community, Couney’s clinic luckily did not burn to the ground in 1911 with the rest of Dreamland. Instead, it remained open until 1943—and revolutionized pediatric science in the process. In hindsight, it’s one offensive idea worth defending.

5 The Amazing (And Disgusting) Pervasiveness Of Blackface Performances

Given the United States’ troubling racial legacy, the advent of blackface minstrelsy—comedic performances of “blackness” by whites in exaggerated costumes and makeup—is unremarkable. What is surprising is how widespread, enduring, and popular it was as a form of entertainment.

The first minstrel shows date to 1830s New York City, featuring white performers sporting tattered clothing and faces blackened with shoe polish. The actors characterized blacks as lazy, ignorant, sexually promiscuous thieves. Among the most popular recurring characters was Jim Crow, a term now best known for the repressive anti-black laws passed throughout the post-Civil War Southern US.

Something this offensive couldn’t possibly go ultra-mainstream . . . right?

Wrong. Blackface endured through the 19th century and, in the early 20th, made the leap to the big screen.^[6] Movies with abhorrent titles like Wooing and Wedding of a Coon and the feminist gem Coon Town Suffragettes were produced, and toxic characters with names like Stepin Fetchit and Sleep ‘n Eat concocted, well into the first half of the 1900s.

Blackface was so mainstream that a lengthy list of Hollywood stars appeared in films either as blackface characters or with them. These include Bing Crosby, Milton Berle, Fred Astaire, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, and future US president Ronald Reagan.

4 Will Foxtrot For Food: The Great Depression’s Dancing Destitute

Beginning in the mid-1920s as fun-filled endurance competitions, dance marathons were last-couple-standing contests in which the duo who could Charleston, Jitterbug, and Lindy Hop the longest won prizes.

But when the New York stock market crashed in late 1929, ushering in the Great Depression, dance-a-thons took a darker, more desperate turn on the dance floor. Suddenly, those prizes were the only income many dancers had a chance to earn, transforming a lighthearted competition into something more resembling The Hunger Games.

With US unemployment exceeding 25 percent, destitute dancers weren’t difficult to find. Well-to-do patrons paid for the privilege to cackle as demeaned duos did everything in their power to outlast their fellow impoverished competitors. Many took turns napping in their partners’ arms during events that would stretch on for days or even weeks.

As added incentive in a nation ravaged by hunger, the dancers were typically fed so long as they kept dancing.^[7]

All the while, onlookers watched and waited for dancers to quit, collapse, or have sleep-deprived nervous breakdowns. The schadenfreude-driven spectacles became so morbid that many states eventually banned them.

3 #MePew: The Sex Offender Skunk

Plenty of cartoons have featured questionable behavior at best: Elmer Fudd trying to murder an anthropomorphized bunny. Homer Simpson choking his son, Bart. Pretty much everything on South Park.

But the all-time award for “Worst Behavior in an Animated Program” undoubtedly goes to everyone’s favorite forced fornicator: Pepe Le Pew.

Granted, Fudd deserves an honorable mention for his armed pursuit of Bugs Bunny. But at least hunting wabbits is legal. Ol’ Pepe is consumed by the compulsion to commit interspecies rape.

His perpetual would-be victim is Penelope the Pussycat.^[8] And ever since Pepe laid his skunk eyes on her, she’s been fleeing her odiferous, amorous assailant. Since Pepe’s debut in 1945, children have witnessed the attempted sexual subjugation of a female feline . . . and apparently found it amusing enough to make Pepe a Merrie Melodies regular.

It’s unfair to judge cartoonists in the first half of the 20th century by 2018 standards, but was attempted rape acceptable enough in the postwar West that it was fodder for children’s entertainment? New episodes were made until 1962 and reran for decades afterward. Sacrebleu!

2 Flipper: Not Really Smiling

Long before the controversial orca show in Sea World, there was America’s favorite dolphin, right in everyone’s living rooms.

Purportedly faster than lightning and smarter than his fellow seafarers, Flipper was a hit TV show from 1964 to 1967. The marine mammal saved would-be drowning victims, caught criminals, and even (for some reason) once flew in a helicopter before diving down into the ocean depths to save the day.

Only in reality, that wasn’t Flipper. A dead, frozen dolphin was tossed from the helicopter. Granted, entertainment was tricky in the days before CGI allowed filmmakers to create pretty much any visual they wanted. But the show has an even darker story.

Flipper was portrayed by a handful of dolphins. A few years after the show’s cancellation, one of them committed suicide.^[9] Yes, apparently dolphins can do that.

One day in 1970, after years in captivity, Kathy the dolphin swam into the arms of her longtime trainer, Ric O’Barry. She then ceased breathing, sinking to the bottom of her tank. Unlike humans, dolphins can choose to stop breathing (we can’t—try it). O’Barry, who soon after described Kathy as “really depressed,” went on to be a marine mammal rights activist, even authoring a 1988 memoir called Behind the Dolphin Smile.

Programs and films with animal stars are often met with questions about their humane treatment. In Flipper ’s case, those worries were warranted.

1 Funky Cold Rohypnol

Examples abound of songs that, either by being dated or just plain degrading, disrespect women. From the old-fashioned, no-means-no-noncompliant holiday classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”^[10] to rappers perched on giant female posteriors, the music industry has had the objectification of women down to a science for generations.

Few songs, however, are disturbing on the level of 1989’s “Funky Cold Medina.” It’s basically a song about roofie-ing women.

The story unfolds as follows: Like any red-blooded gent, Tone Loc—the same artist who brought us the similarly racy (but refreshingly rape-free) “Wild Thing”—was out on the town, an eligible bachelor in the market to meet some bachelorettes. Upon entering a local watering hole, however, our hero is puzzled by the number of attractive, seemingly amorous young ladies keeping the company of a less conventionally appealing chap.

Naturally, Tone couldn’t help but query the pub’s most popular bloke as to his secret. Per the lyrics:

This brother told me a secret on how to get more chicks,
Put a little Medina in your glass, and the girls will come real quick.
It’s better than any alcohol or aphrodisiac,
A couple of sips of this love potion, and she’ll be on your lap.

Undeterred by the prospect of committing felony sexual assault, Mr. Loc decided to employ the somehow novel strategy of spiking someone’s drink to get them in the bedroom. Unluckily for him, it backfired. Per the lyrics:

I took her to my crib, and everything went well as planned,
But when she got undressed, it was a big old mess, Sheena was a man!

Now that’s cold.

Christopher Dale frequently writes on society, politics, and sobriety-based issues. He’s been published in Salon, The Daily Beast, NY Daily News, and Parents.com, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter at @ChrisDaleWriter.

Though we often think of amendments in relation to the US Constitution, any nation or state with a constitution has likely amended the document many times over its history. The state of Alabama developed a constitution in 1901 that they have amended 977 times as of 2022. So a constitution is by no means written in stone and can change literally hundreds of times. But that doesn’t mean every amendment is created equal, and some are downright weird. 

10. The Expert Wizard Amendment 

The year was 1995 and state senator Duncan Scott had an idea. From thence forth, any psychiatrist or psychologist who was going to testify as an expert witness in a court of law should have to meet one very specific requirement: they would have to dress as a wizard.

The requirements of dressing like a wizard are spelled out in the text of the amendment and indicate, in part, that these witnesses must wear a cone-shaped hat at least two feet tall. The surface of the hat should be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. They will wear a white beard of at least 18 inches in length. Any important points they make on the stand must be accentuated by stabbing the air with a wand. The bailiff will also be required to dim the lights and bang a Chinese gong. 

All of that was spelled out, in very clear English, in the body of an amendment. The amendment went on to be passed unanimously by the New Mexico State Senate. Not a single objection was heard.

Duncan included the amendment as satire because he felt too many experts were being used in trials. The wizard portion was eliminated in the House before the amendment became law, so it’s not on the books. But that doesn’t change the fact the entire Senate let it pass without a word. 

9. The 27th Amendment Passed 200 Years Late 

The 27th Amendment states, “No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of representatives shall have intervened.” It means lawmakers can’t give themselves a raise until after an election when voters get to have some kind of say. It was proposed in 1789. It became effective in 1992, almost 203 years later. 

How did this old, forgotten amendment get resurrected? Thank Gregory Watson. When he was 19, he learned about the amendment for a course in school and wrote a paper on how it could still be ratified. His teacher gave him a C. The academic backhand motivated him to prove that he was right. 

Thirty-eight states needed to approve the amendment, but only nine had done so. Watson began writing letters. One Senator from Maine answered him in the affirmative. They did some work on Watson’s behalf and Maine lawmakers passed it in 1983.

States began to all like dominoes after that. Colorado passed it in 1984, five more took it up in 1985, and then each year after more passed it as well. By 1992, after ten years of work, 35 states had passed the amendment and only three more were needed. He got all three that year.

On May 5, 1992, the 27th Amendment passed into law as the Michigan House of Representatives put through the final vote. He still got a C on his paper, but at least he made up for it in a practical way.

8. The Weaponized Tick Amendment

The National Defense Authorization Act is a law that lays out the budget for the Department of Defense on a yearly basis. A new law is passed every year to establish how much money will be spent and on what. Amendments to the law are routinely added on to address whatever pressing concerns lawmakers may have in relation to how the DoD operates. 

In the year 2019, an amendment was added to the NDAA that would require the Pentagon to investigate whether or not ticks were weaponized against United States citizens. It’s been alleged that ticks may have been part of a biological weapons program conducted between 1950 and 1975. 

New Jersey Representative Chris Smith introduced the amendment and wanted it disclosed whether or not there was such a program, who ran it, were ticks released intentionally or otherwise, and did they infect people with disease.

The Amendment passed the House but, as of 2022, the amendment has never been able to make it through the Senate and the idea has been mostly dismissed by experts as being little more than an unfounded conspiracy theory. 

7. The Amendment Amendment 

Sometimes laws form a circular loop of logic that makes them seem redundant, nonsensical, or contrary to their own intent. A fine example of this comes from Florida in the year 2006. The state government passed an amendment known as Amendment 3, or the Florida Supermajority Requirement Amendment, that puts the absurdity of lawmaking that sometimes rears its head on full display.

The intent of the amendment was to change how amendments themselves are passed. At that time, an amendment needed 50% of votes plus one to pass. But with the passing of the amendment, it changed the law to require 60% support for any amendment to pass. On the surface, this is not particularly noteworthy. 

What does stand out is the fact the amendment was passed into law with a 57% vote. This means that, under the terms the law itself established, it wouldn’t even pass. But, fortunately for those supporting the amendment, it didn’t take effect until immediately after it passed with what, from then on, was not enough of a majority. 

6. Luxembourg Amended Their Monarch Out of Power 

If you’re afraid odd amendments are only passed in the United States, worry not. This kind of thing happens in democracies all over the world. Just look at what Luxembourg had to do back in 2008. 

At that time, the government had been trying to pass a bill about euthanasia. Known as a “right to die” law, the idea was to make it legal for someone who was deemed of sound mind who was suffering from a terminal or incurable and painful disease to be able to voluntarily obtain a physician assisted suicide.

While the government was willing to pass the bill into law, Luxembourg also had a monarchy in place. Their Duke was required to give the final okay to any law, and he refused to sign off on the bill. 

Undeterred by their monarch’s reluctance to support their endeavor, the legislature introduced a constitutional amendment that would remove the requirement for royal assent on bills being passed. The amendment passed 56 to zero. This stripped the Duke of any formal duties whatsoever and made him simply a figurehead from then on. 

5. The 19th Amendment

The 19th Amendment was a big one for the United States and secured women the right to vote by preventing discrimination on the basis of sex. It was passed into law in 1920, even though it was first introduced in 1878. That means it was a long, hard road to get where it was and clearly it faced a lot of resistance. 

In 1919, both the House and the Senate passed the amendment, but it needed to go to the states to be ratified. Twenty-two states ratified it by the end of the year. By June 1920, 35 states had ratified it and only one more was needed to get it through. That fell on Tennessee as every other state had rejected it. 

The Senate of Tennessee had approved the amendment, but the House was stuck. The vote came back 48 to 48. It looked like it might end up dying if not for Representative Harry Burn. Or, more accurately, his mother. 

Burn was against the amendment, but while the House was still debating the issue, he got a letter from his mother. She encouraged him to vote in favor of ratification and, being a good boy, he did as his mother urged and changed his vote. Ratification was complete and women were legally afforded the right to vote. 

4. Switzerland Bans Minarets

Word is that Switzerland is the third happiest country in the world. Wonder what sorts of things concern citizens of the third happiest nation on Earth? Minarets, apparently. 

Minarets, if you’re unsure, are usually tall, narrow towers. So we’re talking about architecture here. They’re also a common part of the architecture of mosques. They serve as a visual indicator of where a mosque is since you can see them from a distance, and they also can be a place from which the call to prayer is made. Turns out a majority of the Swiss don’t care for that.

In 2009, the Swiss people voted on a referendum to ban the further construction of minarets in the country. Though polls before the referendum predicted the matter would be squashed, it actually passed with a vote of 57.5%. That meant an amendment would be added to the portion of the Swiss constitution dealing with the relationship between the state and religion. It simply states “the construction of minarets is forbidden.”

The reason behind the ban seemed to be an anti-Muslim sentiment that extended across political boundaries with those on the right condemning what they called the “Islamification” of Switzerland and those on the left who supported the ban citing concern for how women are treated in the religion. 

3. Putin’s Bribery Amendment

When it comes to running Russia, Vladimir Putin is the sort of guy who keeps bluntness at the forefront of all he does. For instance, in 2015, he introduced an amendment that altered the country’s criminal code. It reduced the penalties that could be levied against anyone caught giving or receiving a bribe. That’s about as unsubtle as it gets.

Under Russian law, bribery is punished by paying a fine that is based on the bribe. Previously, accepting a bribe meant the offender had to pay back 25 times the amount of the bribe. That was lowered to 10 times. Giving a bribe went from 20 times to 10 times. It was not clear what motivated the change, other than perhaps some sympathy from bribe makers and takers.

2. Canada’s Margarine Amendment

Once upon a time, margarine was not legal in Canada. From 1886 until 1948, in fact. The dairy industry didn’t like that margarine was being colored to look like butter. So buttery margarine was banned outright. During this time, Newfoundland was not officially a Canadian province and, as it turns out, they were running a heck of a bootleg margarine business. Margarine costs half as much as butter, so it was a preferred alternative, especially during wartime or the Depression.

Canada wanted Newfoundland to join the country and the government of Newfoundland agreed, but with stipulations. One of those was that they would not become part of Canada unless they were legally permitted to keep making margarine. The laws were amended to allow for this. 

The federal prohibition against margarine was lifted in 1948, but each province still had their own laws in place. Most provinces had laws on the books dealing with the color of margarine for years. Ontario only allowed for the sale of margarine that looked like butter in 1995 while Quebec waited until 2008. 

1. The Right to Vote in Australia  

We saw how the suffrage movement worked in America, but Australia had its own hurdles. The Adult Suffrage Act passed in 1894 after years of debate. Not only did women get the right to vote but to run for office as well. That was the result of a sabotage that backfired.

Women in Australia had almost no rights to property, or even their own children. Times change, as they do, and the movement for equality gained steam, though many men still held onto some pretty backwards ideals. When the amendment finally made it to a vote, a last ditch effort was made to sabotage it. Conservative opponents tacked on something extra – not only would women have the right to vote, they could run for office. The thinking was that it was so absurd it would lose the vote. Instead, it passed, and the opponents effectively shot themselves in the foot.