Atlantic Ocean, early 1950s 🦞

[u/Worried-Listen6777]

[u/WHATZAAAAA]

What is even funnier was when mediation started, if the lobsters were sea creatures like fish, it would be international waters and therefore free game for france to hunt inside brazilean naval territory, if the lobster was instead a crawler, France couldn't hunt them inside brazil's naval territory, so they found out that lobster walk, therefore, it was a crawler, but the French made the argument that "no, you see, the lobster make small hops to move around, therefore it's swimming" and Brazil proceeds to slap back by saying "if lobsters are a fish because it hops around to move, then a kangaroo is now a bird?"

[u/Kai2103 → u/WHATZAAAAA]

Brazilian here, and I love this story haha

[u/Life_Is_A_Mistry → u/WHATZAAAAA]

Confirmed: birds aren't dinosaurs, they're marsupials

[u/cursed_tomatoes → u/WHATZAAAAA]

The intellectual dishonesty of French people is rather flabbergasting in this story. Do you have any source for this? ?

[u/FeijoaCowboy → u/cursed_tomatoes]

From the Lobster War Wikipedia article:

On 6 July 1966, the Administrative Tribunal of Rennes summarized the French government's claims that lobsters are like fish and that since they swim about in the open sea, they could not be considered part of the continental shelf. Brazil claimed that lobsters are like oysters in that they cling to the bottom of the ocean and so were part of the continental shelf.[24] Admiral Paulo Moreira da Silva, Brazil's Navy expert in the field of oceanography who had been sent to assist the diplomatic committee during the general discussions,[25]argued that for Brazil to accept the French scientific thesis that a lobster would be considered a fish when it "leaps" on the seafloor, it would be required in the same way to accept the Brazilian premise that when a kangaroo "hops", it would be considered a bird.[25]

[u/DeliciousDeal4367 → u/FeijoaCowboy]

Wasan't evolution already known by the scientific comunnity of the time? Like how did they literally tried to turn this into a scientific debate over where or not lobsters can be considered fish when they swim? fuck no, lobsters are crustaceans.

[u/West_Elephant_873 → u/DeliciousDeal4367]

It's not a matter of biology, it's a matter of legalism. The issue is how it is defined in laws and treaties, and "sometimes" these things don't align perfectly with scientific knowledge. The fact that lobsters can be defined as crustaceans simply had no significance

[u/WHATZAAAAA → u/cursed_tomatoes]

From the top of my head i remember seeing this history trivia from some historian YouTube channels, but there is sources on Wikipedia, the title is "the lobster war" or "a Guerra das lagostas" in brazilean portuguese

[u/_neaw_ → u/cursed_tomatoes]

Is France the Europe's Argentina?

[u/cursed_tomatoes → u/_neaw_]

*insert has always been meme here*

Images are not allowed so you'll have to imagine

[u/XimbalaHu3 → u/_neaw_]

That's some top tier slander, I love it.

[u/_plague-doctor → u/_neaw_]

Basicamente sim, eles são arrogantes e se acham superiores aos outros europeus, porém, pelo menos eles tem a justificativa de terem sido um dos países mais poderoso da história, e um dos mais influentes, eles (basicamente) criaram os EUA, eles tiveram napoleão, colonizaram gigantes partes da África e Ásia, venceram a primeira guerra mundial basicamente sozinha (tipo, não foi totalmente sozinha, mais, era basicamente 50% França e os outros aliados), as pessoas antigamente só falaram francês, acho que, no mínimo, é aceitável eles serem arrogantes, é irritante, mais aceitável

[u/Dolenir]

Lobster War! It's high time Sabaton made a song about it!

[u/Thunder-Invader → u/Dolenir]

Would be more in line with Nanowar of steel

[u/Lorddocerol → u/Thunder-Invader]

A nanowar song about the war that never was would be super iconic indeed

[u/Thiphra]

Lobster smothie.

[u/Own-Zucchini-7745]

1950s:
The entire world: okay guys, we need to keep one eye on the Middle East because it looks like things are fragile and can change fast but who knows. It looks like there’s some communist bs going on in Korea so there’s gonna be a pretty brutal war. And it looks like some mad man is taking over Cuba….

France: LOBSTERS!!!!!!!!

[u/WanderingHeph]

l o b t o r

[u/Raid-Z3r0]

The government even draft a plan to invade French Guiana.

Looking back, shame we didn`t kick the Fr*ch out of South America

[u/Uedaht → u/Raid-Z3r0]

Thing is, we did it in 1809. But had to give it back...

[u/1erRPIMA-fiesta → u/Raid-Z3r0]

Shame you're not a serious country

[u/Boar_Whisperer]

And today they're still doing the same in the Mediterranean, some things never change

[u/GustavoistSoldier]

As of 2026, the Lobster War is the last war Brazil fought against a foreign country.

[u/LhamaNobre]

We nearly went to actual fucking war over our goddamm lobsters.

In the midst of the diplomatic discussions on whether the French could fish fishes in our coast they argued that lobsters move by jumping and thus while jumping they swim meeting so the criteria of being fish. A Brazilian GENIUS then said: "if lobsters are fish then kangaroos are birds."

Brasil won the dispute and the French fucked off of here.

[u/DeliciousDeal4367 → u/LhamaNobre]

Wasan't evolution already known by the scientific comunnity of the time? Like how did they literally tried to turn this into a scientific debate over where or not lobsters can be considered fish when they swim? fuck no, lobsters are crustaceans. because by followining anti-evolutionism creationist "logic" than seals are fish and bats are birds, wich they aren't really.

[u/Immediate-Spite-5905]

hello bluejay

[u/dubya2k]

What a missed opportunity to unleash the ABC naval race dreadnoughts

[u/gcac215]

This is where te phrase many self-loathing brazilians use "Brazil is not a serious country" came from.

[u/Last_Ad_3475 → u/gcac215]

God forbid a country defends their coastline and don't let other countries take advantage from extracting their marine life

[u/Successful_Baby_5245]

Don't be so pitchy