(Mental Floss) -- Over the centuries, people have had some very good reasons to dress up like a member of the opposite sex. 

After record-setting Olympics athlete Stella Walsh died in 1980, it was revealed that she had indeed been a man. 

And I'm not talking about people who live this way out of personal preference, or those who dress up for theater and entertainment. 

Here are just five examples. 

1. Cross-dressing to join the army 

Until recently, women have rarely been allowed to serve as soldiers. 

So what was a gal to do if she wanted to serve her country? Naturally, disguise herself as a man and join the troops. 

At least 400 Civil War soldiers were women in drag. These included Union Army soldier "Frank Thompson" (also known as Sarah Edmonds), whose small frame and feminine mannerisms (rather than causing suspicion) made her an ideal spy, as she could spy on the Confederates disguised as... a woman! 

She wasn't the first woman to don a male disguise and join the army, though. During the Revolutionary War, women fought as men on both sides. 

Hannah Snell, for example, joined the British army to find her husband, who had walked out on her to enlist. 

Once her true sex was discovered (thanks to a pesky groin injury), she became a national celebrity in Britain, and made a post-war career of performing in bars as the "Female Warrior." Mental Floss: The Confederacy's plan to conquer Latin America 

2. Cross-dressing to keep a royal family together 
Name the athlete who died and was then revelead that she was a man? What year? How many civil war soliders were women in drag? Who was Frank Thompson in "real"? Was she the first woman to do a male disguise? During what war did women fight as men? Name a woman who joined the British Army? and why did she do that? what led to the discovery of her gender? and what was she known as after?
Stella Welsh 1980 at least 400 Sarah Edmonds no revolutionary Hannah Snell to find her husband groin injury the Female Warrior