I have seen suggestions that at certain times the earth has wobbled and flipped on its axis. I thought I had something somewhere in my "Odd Science/Junk Science" file, but a brief review only found links to things like bellydancing librarians, the FBI Unusual Phenomena listing (cattle mutilation, Roswell, and x file stuff) and a half silvered public toilet in Germany (one way mirror. You can see the street as you use the commode, but they only see a mirror on the outside of the toilet).
http://amasci.com/weird/wpage.html
http://amasci.com/weird.html
One reason that the wind may have blown backward is that a good part of the North Atlantic or North Pacific as well as up to 1/2 of North America may have been covered by sheet ice. I was taught by my teachers that we had just come out of an ice age and the temperatures would continue to rise. At some point we will plunge back into another ice age. Start stockpiling coal....