Not at all obscure but I will bump the thread in the OP's spirit:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)A meme bridge which collapsed in Washington State in 1940 due to wind resonance and other stuff, standard instructional material in physics classes. When things got bad a guy tried to rescue a dog out of a car and (according to my dad) the dog bit him, so he was like "okay, fuck you dog, I tried" and just bolted, that may be lore though. There is also
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDSA disease engineered by the United States Federal Government. Ironically, this disease has predominantly targeted blacks and homosexuals, and as all engineers are by defintion homosexuals, they really hoisted their own petard with this one.
