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From Gettysburg to Verdun, areas involved in wartime atrocities carry their scars decades after the actual fighting has stopped. But sometimes, just sometimes, nature takes a look at that shit and decides to reclaim what was once ruined by humans -- Disney-style.
For example, Okunoshima is a tiny island just off mainland Japan that was the hub of Japan's chemical warfare program during World War II, housing facilities that produced atrocious amounts of deadly mustard gas. If you go there today, you will find hundreds and hundreds of adorable bunny rabbits:
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Being a secret military facility (and probably also because "Top Secret Skin-Eating-Gas Cannery" is hard to fit onto a tiny dot on a map), Okunoshima was erased from official maps when the factories were cranking out poison during the war. Even after the facilities were shut down and abandoned, Japan decided to leave it out of the maps due to their shameful past. Can you blame them? Over the decades, however, people started visiting the island again, because the thrill of creepy abandoned places always overrules survival instinct sooner or later. What these visitors found was scores of cute, fluffy bunnies, skippity-hopping all over the island.
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Hundreds upon hundreds of bunnies. Just bouncing around the abandoned facilities, cavorting amongst themselves without a worry in the world. They aren't the usual shy variety, either -- the instant people set foot on the island, bunnies gather at their feet and start begging for treats.
But how does an island best known for its role in wartime atrocities evolve into a haven for free-range bunnies? The most logical explanation would be that the rabbits are descendants of test animals that were released when the facilities were shut down. The truth, however, just adds to the fairy tale vibe of the island: In 1971, a nearby elementary school was having difficulty caring for their class pets. They had to get rid of their eight rabbits. Somehow, they ended up choosing the creepy abandoned chemical weapons island as the perfect place to dump said rabbits, because apparently the whole "teaching students responsibility" thing wasn't really in vogue back then.
But the eight domesticated bunnies, cast into the wild with only each other to rely on, survived. And bunnies being bunnies, there were soon a lot more than eight. Because it's difficult to remain an ominous site when your every square foot features a contestant for the most adorable creature in the world, Okunoshima cast away its war-mongering past literally overnight. Today, the island is popularly known as Usagi Shima (Rabbit Island), and the dark clouds of its past have dissipated to make way for a future full of peace, sunshine ... and bunnies. Lots and lots of little furry bunnies.
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Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_19861_the-5-most-adorable-stories-in-history-war.html#ixzz2JP3ww648
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_19861_the-5-most-adorable-stories-in-history-war.html#ixzz2JP3r52FV