The Harlem Shake. The Dress. Damn Daniel.
We like to think 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 break the internet if they happened today.
SEE ALSO: 12 of history's greatest philosophers reveal the secret to happiness
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.
Phone booth stuffing took off all over the world in the late 1950s.
Like the "Keep Calm and Carry On" mantra, phone booth stuffing first gained popularity outside the US. But once it arrived stateside, in the spring of 1959, kids couldn't help but join in.
People would cram their bodies into the narrow spaces like olives in a jar. Some adopted other methods, such as stacking themselves horizontally.
The world record for phone booth stuffing came in March of 1959, when 25 people in South Africa piled into a booth. Incidentally, the phone rang during the stunt, but no one could answer it.
Sadly, the trend died by the end of 1959.
"Orchidelirium" infected Victorian-era snobs who competed to own the best flowers.
Long before people collected Twitter or Instagram followers, the ultimate status symbol was orchids.
People in Victorian-era Europe were so feverish about the precious flower, in fact, that at the height of "orchidelirium" they were hiring staffs of "hunters" to travel the world in search of new species. Those species were often sold at auction for exorbitant prices.
Finally, in 1973, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora banned the practice of wild orchid collection.
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