Native American ghost dancers believed their special shirts would literally bounce bullets off their chests

A closer look

Born out of extreme desperation, the late 19th-century Ghost Dance movement promised a mystical solution to American colonization. The prophet Wovoka claimed that if the tribes danced long enough, the earth would swallow the white settlers and resurrect the buffalo. Tragically, some adherents took it a step further, believing their ritually painted 'Ghost Shirts' were magically impenetrable to army gunfire. The US military brutally proved them wrong at Wounded Knee.