C.1200 in England, when King John was going to visit the nearby town of Nottinghamshire, the town of Gotham realised this would make them part of the King's Highway, which would introduce new taxes to them. At the time madness was considered contagious, so the whole town pretended to be mad to drive away the King's procession, and the new taxes too!
As learned from Terry Jones' medieval lives documentary series, episode one: The Peasant
Pic from BBC
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