The strangest wars of history
In 1738, a British mariner named Robert Jenkins displayed a severed, decomposing ear before the members of Parliament. As part of a formal testimony, he claimed that a Spanish coastguard officer had sliced off his ear seven years earlier as punishment for smuggling. Spurred on by this stirring testimony, the British had soon declared war on the kingdom of Spain. Thus began the outlandish “War of Jenkins’ Ear