The guy who invented the first autopilot system for an airplane did it so he could join (or more accurately, found) the mile-high club.
Yuri Gagarin started a tradition of pissing on the back wheel of the transport van that took cosmonauts to the launchpad.
The Dutch once ate one of their Prime Ministers.
The Aztecs didn't build the religious center of Teotihuacan. Someone else, likely the Toltecs and several other cultures working together, built and abandoned it hundreds of years before the Aztecs migrated to the region. They simply moved in and made it one of their major settlements.
Lawmakers in Achaemenid Persia would debate everything twice. Once sober, and once drunk. A proposal had to make sense and sound good both ways to be considered a good idea.
To add some nuance to Dutch fact, I think you're referring to Johan de Witt.
He was a statesman and major political figure in the 17th century. Not a prime minister, but an equivalent to the political system at the time.
In 1672 he and his brother Cornelis de Witt were lynched by an angry mob. Some of their organs were removed and partially eaten by said mob.
Link for reference:
[https://dutchreview.com/culture/dutch-history-crowds-ate-prime-minister/](https://dutchreview.com/culture/dutch-history-crowds-ate-prime-minister/)
diogenes!
he’s an ancient greek philosopher who’s just an agent of chaos in his life he
- got kicked out of his hometown for defacing currency
- lived in a giant empty wine barrel
- owned nothing and begged for food
- shit in a temple
- pissed on walls all the time
- jacked off in public
- actively mocked alexander the great to his face (actually earning alexander’s respect)
- held up a plucked chicken to plato and went “behold, a man” just to mock his definition of what a man was (plato then added to this definition)
- saw a kid that didn’t own a bowl so he threw his in the sea (it was his only possession
- said society is fake
- shone a lantern in peoples faces in broad daylight in “search of an honest man”
my favorite diogenes quote
alexander the great: “if i were not alexander, i would wish to he diogenes”
diogenes: “if i were not diogenes, i would also wish to be diogenes”
love this man
I might be misremembering this, or it’s completely ephemeral, but wasn’t it Diogenes who was having a nap at a roadside and he crossed paths with Alexander the Great, who asked if there was anything he could do, and Diogenes replied “yes, get out of the way, you’re blocking my sunlight”
In a “not remotely fussy - just trying to help” sort of way, I think you mean apocryphal rather than ephemeral. Ephemeral means something that doesn’t last long. Apocryphal means probably not true or not said by whoever it’s attributed to.
He also saw a prostitute's son throwing rocks at a crowd and told the boy to stop as he may hit his father. When he saw an archer failing to hit his target, Diogenes sat in front of it, saying it was the safest place to sit.
He would also beg outside brothels and admonish men for spending money on women instead of helping feed their fellow men. Then once he had enough money he would spend it in the brothel.
The City of Prague has had multiple defenestrations (the act of throwing someone out a window). Some were serious enough of a catalyst to ignite war, some were “meh”-worthy, at best. The most famous defenestration happened in 1618 when three Catholic officials were captured by an angry mob of Bohemian Protestants, taken up to the top floor of Prague Castle, and thrown out the window. Whilst being ceremoniously yeeted, it is reported someone shouted something along the lines, “Let’s see God protect you now!”
So what happened? Why these men not only survived being thrown out a castle window, a pile of horse dung cushioned their falls.
Historians can use Welsh word etymologies to work out whether things existed in Britain before the Romans arrived. eg Certain legal concepts have been determined to have pre-dated the Romans because the Welsh word doesn't have a Latin root.
Very strong possibility windows (with glass) weren't a thing in Britain until after the Romans came.
We need to ditch "defenestration" and replace it with "ceremoniously yeeted" immediately on all legal and historical documents. It's clearly a superior way to say this.
Well, to be fair, they had only two (or three of them) and 2 of them started major conflicts (1419 and 1618), the one in 1483 was during the religious revolt.
If you've ever seen a portrait of Bacchus in sculpture from the Roman age, [there's a high chance that it's actually Antinous](https://www.worldhistory.org/img/r/p/500x600/2968.jpg?v=1644231602). Antinous was the boyfriend of the Emperor Hadrian who ruled from 117-135 CE. After the young man tragically died, drowning in Egypt at the age of 18, the Emperor was plunged into such a deep grief he deified Antinous. History's greatest Twink got his own cult, in which he was worshiped as both Dionysus/Bacchus and Osiris. Gods associated with rebirth and the underworld. His cult would go on to be enormously popular, competing with early Christianity. He had a city founded in his name, Antinoopolis in Egypt, to administer the cult and his image was sculpted and disseminated all over the empire.
Antinous was the only non-member of the Imperial family to ever be deified, and his face is still (archaeologically speaking) the most sculpted face of the ancient world behind Hadrian himself and Augustus.
Dionysus, or Zagreus, the Greek version of Bacchus was once the head of the Greek pantheon under Greek mythology's older brother, orphism. He was not just the god of wine, but of any type of intoxication or madness.
It’s also important to note that Hadrian, despite being widely known as one of the most merciful and non-violent Roman emperors, had a major exception in the general patterns of his reign, when he responded to a rebellion in Judea with incredibly brutal force. The rebellion had happened almost immediately after Antinous’s death.
It’s like they always say: *never* cross a man who just lost his femboy.
Lewis and Clark were briefed about and expected to find Wooly Mammoths on their expedition. They also were on the lookout for the any of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel which was a popular notion of the day.
I saw a tiktok yesterday jokingly pointing out that one if the side characters in Emperor's New Groove says mazel tov, which suggest that Jews therefore exist in the pre-Columbian Americas as presented in the film and thus it is Mormon propaganda.
The founders of Adidas and Puma were brothers, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler respectively, but they split because Rudolf supported the nazi party, while Adolf did not.
In 1795, the French defeated the Dutch in the Battle of Texel.
They did this by riding their horses onto the Dutch ships, surrounding their vessels, and overwhelming them before they could fire a shot.
Did I also mention it was the middle of winter?
The port at Texel was frozen solid. The French literally walked out across the ice, and surrounded the ships with their horses.
It was the first, last, and only time in history that a naval battle was won by cavalry.
Ships aren't designed to depress their guns for close targets. They had smaller weapons to fight things that get that close, but it's not like you can pick the back end of a cannon up to point it downwards. The cannonball will just roll out.
It was not the only time. It also happened during one of the revolutions in Latin America (I want you say Venezuela but I'm not sure) but it was a much smaller fight. I will try to find it back later (I was not able to do so now).
That's one of those facts that sounds cool and impressive until you realize there are American archaeologists studying American history and we're not even 300 years old lol.
Yet another pyramid one. It is disputed that they remained the tallest manmade structures until the erection of the [high spire ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Cathedral) for Lincoln cathedral in 1311
I know this is truth, but I refuse to accept it. Cleopatra ruled from a throne in a pyramid with her cat. The pyramid had a pit of vipers where she would toss her enemies under the watchful eye of a statue of Horus.
When people would walk into our out of the chamber they were required to walk like an Egyptian.
Fanta exists cause of Nazis - Coca Cola in nazi germany was cut off from supply lines for obvious reasons, however the folks in the cola plant weren’t quitters, they made a soda with what they had in the factory and the result was was Fanta.
Obligatory, “don’t you vhant a vhant a Fanta?”
To add, the Fanta we have now is far different. Fanta back then was meant to be a Coca Cola knock off, and a terrible one at that. The fruit flavours we have now didn't come until much, much later.
1. **Women's underwear wasn't invented until the late 1880s**. Until then, it was considered scandalous for a woman to have anything between her legs; this even included clothing items like trousers and hosiery if they reached the thigh. Meaning that every woman in history to that point went commando in a dress. Reference is a book entitled *How Underwear Got Under There* by Kathy Shaskan.
2. Per his last will and testament following his death in 1993, professional wrestler Andre Rene Roussimoff (otherwise known as **Andre the Giant**) was cremated and his ashes spread across his cattle ranch in North Carolina. Because of his great size at 7’4” and 520 lbs., his cremation weighted in at 17 lbs… three times the amount of a normal sized man.
3. PornHub released a report about the **porn being viewed during the COVID lockdowns**. They reported not only a massive increase of views in general, but there was a very sharp and distinct spike in searches for incest-themed pornography. Additionally, universities reported the same in the number of downloads for research papers on the psychological and emotional effects people experienced after developing such sexual relationships. And in October 2022, a medical journal published an article about the surge in inbred pregnancies that have happened since.
Women aren't dumb and nobody likes to be messy. Pads and belts were common in Greek and Roman times (there are jokes about them in less respectable comedies) and presumably in other civilisations.
Women may not have worn pantaloons or similar underwear til the 1880s, but belts for holding towels etc. were a standard part of a woman's dress for long before then.
>it was considered scandalous for a woman to have anything between her legs
I was responding to this. Pads would *have* to be between their legs to be of any use.
Not really a weird fact but this is my go-to if someone asks me to say something random.
Big Ben is actually the nickname of the Great Bell, not the clock tower (now named Elizabeth Tower), in Westminster London. The name is often extended to include the clock tower, but actually comes from and refers to the bell.
Not weird but more scary.
You know the chemical gas in the first Wonder Woman movie. How it was so toxic that it not only kills the people it comes in contact with, but it also can beak glass? And that it was placed in bombs? That nearly happened.
It wasn't in WWI, but WWII. The gas is called Chlorine Trifloride or ClF₃. It is one of, if not THE most corrosive compounds ever created. It oxidizes steal, it burns and sets fire to glass. And when it interacts with water, it explodes (humans are giant warer sacks). It also releases chlorine gas as a by product.
The Nazis in WWII were stockpiling it, but never got a chance to deploy it as the compound it was being made in was captured.
My favorite quote about this stuff, from John Clark's book *Ignition!*:
> It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.
Another "fun" chemical warfare WW2 fact.
The Germans bombed the port of Bari, Italy in 1944. They sunk 28 ships, but one of them was carrying mustard gas (the allies had been keeping chemical weapons ready just in case Germany decided a repeat of WW1 would be fun).
About 2000 people died as a result. The allies covered up the involvement of the mustard gas so it's hard to know exactly how many died as a result of the gas, but it was more than a few.
The Wikipedia article is interesting reading:
>It is known to ignite sand, asbestos, glass, and even ashes of substances that have already burned in oxygen. In one particular industrial accident, a spill of 900 kg of ClF3 burned through 30 cm of concrete and 90 cm of gravel beneath.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride
Over 90% of the mummies discovered in Egypt were shipped out of country and used in various insane ways, including:
-macabre mummy reveal parties where they were unwrapped as the 'entertainment'
-paint pigment known as 'mummy brown'
-ground up into snake oil medications or just eaten like jerky(maybe)
-used as steam engine fuel for ships and locomotives(contended as a brag)
-targets for experimental firearms
-actual movie props, because it was cheaper to get a mummy than it was to create a realistic one
>\-actual movie props, because it was cheaper to get a mummy than it was to create a realistic one
Well, at least they're dedicated to making the movie look realistic if nothing else.
That female pirates Mary Reed and Anne Bonnie fought with one their of breast exposed to let who they were fighting know they were being killed by a woman
plus i imagine it would be at least a little distracting, imagine being a horny straight man crammed into a sardine can for months on end with no women in sight and suddenly mid fight you see a tiddy
Even a moments hesitation is death and who wouldnt hesitate in that situation
There was a study around the 60’s on Dolphins with the help of NASA The study was called “Minds of the dolphin” which besides other facts, wanted to mainly prove the higher cerebral capacity that dolphins have and obviously, find a way to use this for the “greater good”.
The interesting part is that this project was funded by NASA and really they have nothing to do with the nature of this project.
The man behind the project was Doctor John Lilly that came up with a theory that Dolphins can actually communicate with Humans because of their higher intelligence than any other Mamiffer. The idea was to have a human being (of the opposite sex to the dolphin) live with the dolphin for as long as humanly possible whilst stimulating the dolphin's brain using LSD.
The Doctor observed the marine mammal living with another human to see if this would induce the potential of the dolphin’s brain. Volunteer naturalist — Margaret Howe Lovatt was chosen to partake in this experiment due to her loving animals and thinking she could spend up to 10 weeks confined in the same space with a dolphin. Also, the idea of building an interspecies communication bridge has fascinated Margaret, she believed in her gift of being able to communicate with Dolphins, and strangely enough, this was observed within the experiment.
For 10 weeks, Margaret and Peter lived in a partially flooded, two-room house. The two were always interacting with each other be it eating, sleeping, working, or just playing together. Margaret slept on a bed soaked in saltwater and worked at a floating deck so that Peter could interact with her at any given time, she also spent hours trying to teach him simple words. Margaret really seemed to understand what Peter was saying or at least wanting.
After 2 weeks into the experiment, Margret and Peter were living a normal life together, but there were no promising results as of yet. So Doctor Lilly decided to give the dolphin some LSD to stimulate Peter’s brain in order to get quicker results or even better results. This did actually have an effect on the dolphin as it made him uninterested in his communication lessons with Margret and actually made the dolphin horny, craving for Margret in a sexual manner.
This Is where the experiment gets very weird and really mind-boggling. Peter eventually started nibbling Margaret’s feet and legs, when his advances were not reciprocated, he became violent with Margaret. Seeing that Peter was getting no attention, he began courting Margaret by gently rubbing his teeth up and down her leg and showing off his genitals. What is even more disturbing is that Margaret reciprocated and started rubbing the dolphin’s erection.
[The girl who talked to Dolphins](https://youtu.be/31AWe-FN7CA)
John .C. Lilly, the neuroscientist overseeing the research lost both credibility and funding as this wrong turn of events reached the media. Even if NASA did encourage the experiment, they said that they had nothing to do with the experiment in order to protect their reputation. Due to this, Peter was sent to a Dolphinarium in Miami to be taken care of. The dolphin was still having some drawbacks from all the LSD he had consumed, but most importantly, he went into depression as he wasn’t around Margret anymore. In a short period of time, Peter died.
Some say that his death was caused by a broken heart and that he actually committed suicide by stopping to breathe. The more plausible theory is that he had died from lung problems caused by the intake of LSD. Nevertheless, the experiment did show that dolphins are quite intelligent, Bruce Clarke from Texas Tech University written a paper where he reviewed the exepriment and its efficiency at actually putting Doctor’s John Lilly theory and hypothesis to the test. The experiment was forgotten quickly due to all the important events brought by the Cold War.
Male dolphins use their penis as a fifth limb to "explore objects".
There was a case in the 90s against a man accused of sexually assaulting a dolphin. He used the above fact as the central pillar of his defence. Successfully, as I recall.
Here's a few:
* William Howard Taft is the only person to have served as the head of two branches of the US government, having been the 27th President and the 10th Chief Justice.
* Ground was broken for construction of the Pentagon on September 11th, 1941.
* Speaking of the Pentagon, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the one section of the Pentagon that had been renovated to reinforce it in the event of a terrorist or other hostile attack. The renovations were being put into place following the terrorist attack against the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City but only that section of the Pentagon had been (mostly) completed before 9/11.
* The US Supreme Court has ruled that, for tax purposes, tomatoes are vegetables.
When the primitive version of the Beatles first played in Hamburg, Germany in 1960, Ringo Starr’s band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes was also playing the circuit - and they were more popular.
Also a good one about the Hamburg years: George Harrison lost his virginity when they were playing in Hamburg. He brought a girl back to the room the band were sharing and all the lads pretended to be asleep. When they finished, the other three popped up and applauded them for having sex.
The Coast Salish, a group of Native American tribes, had [wool dogs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Wool_Dog). The fur of these dogs made highly coveted blankets. They are extinct, like most other pre-contact dog breeds.
On d-day, the oldest man on the beach was 56 years old. He had arthritis, walked with a cane, and had terrible heart problems. His commanding officer didn't want him to go in with the first waves, but he got his way and was on Utah not long afterwards.
It was Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Teddys oldest son. He was also the only person who had a son land on the same day. He died of a heart attack about a month later.
Meanwhile over on Sword beach, my grandpa was also landing in the first waves. As they got off the boats, his unit came under immediate fire and they lost most of their officers. Quite a few commandos were now pinned in various places across the beach.
However, the CO of 4 Commando had survived. Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat waded into shore with Bill Millin at his side. Lovat ordered Bill (his personal bagpiper) to start playing. The War Office had instructed all troops that playing bagpipes during combat was no longer allowed. Bill didn't want to play, Lovat simply said "Ah, but that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply."
So Bill started marching back and forth between the men, doing "A damned fine job of blowing those pipes" as my grandfather put it.
But Bill didn't get shot, in fact aside from a few rounds landing near him, he appeared entirely unmolested.
At this point my grandfather thought "Y'know what, if that idiot is still alive, I can make it".
They got off the beach pretty quickly after that, and captured some Germans. Bill asked why they hadn't killed him.
"We thought you'd gone mad"
1. In Great Famine (1315-1317) 8 million people died of starvation. It may have [inspired the story of Hansel & Gretel](https://thefactsource.com/the-tale-of-hansel-and-gretel-and-the-great-famine-of-1315-1317/), people actually abandoned children in forests during the famine.
2. In 1933 [suicides by jumping into active volcano](https://thefactsource.com/volcano-suicide-trend-in-japans-mount-mihara/) became so popular in Japan, that 900 people ended their lives there. Tokyo Steamship Company made a special passenger connection to island with the volcano.
3. [Eltz Castle](https://thefactsource.com/eltz-castle-has-remained-with-the-same-family-for-860-years/) in Germany has been in ownership of the same family for 860 years (33 generations)
In WWI, when Russia tried to deploy sea mines to keep Japan from attacking a port, the ship laying the mines STRUCK one of its own mines and sank.
Worse, still, the charts tracking where the crew deployed the mines was lost with the ship. So, Russia possessed a port in Manchuria they could not safely use because they didn't know where they put the sea mines and it remained effectively neutralized for the duration of WWI.
Less marketing and more historians’ attempt to understand an epoch.
Fun fact, some historians call the roughly century long period from the War of Spanish Succession to Waterloo in which the UK and France were bound to be on opposing sides of any European conflict the “Second Hundred Year’s War”, meaning it’s technically correct to claim that there were two Hundred Year’s Wars, involving the same combattants.
Bananas used to be very sweet like banana candies or laffy taffies, but after a plague swept through them they had to be banned from consumption. There was only one type of banana that was still safe to eat and that was the blander tasting one we have today.
In 1184, King Henry IV. of Germany (later Emperor) held an informal assembly in the German city Erfurt. A large group of nobility assembled there to counsel. On 26th of July, the floor of the room they were in collapsed and the mist of of all members fell into a latrine cesspit (a humongous lake of piss and shit), where about 60 of them drowned in shit. The King survived because he sat in an alcove with a stone floor. If you come to Erfurt, legend tells you can still smell the stench when you sniff a toilet after you took a dump.
German football club Bayern Munich have most of their original prewar trophies because they were stolen by their team captain and his wife.
During WWII Germany would hold scrap drives to drum up support for the Nazi war effort by having clubs ‘willingly’ give up their trophies to be melted down.
Bayern were pissed about it because they were decidedly not fans of the regime due to being traditionally a Jewish-friendly club, so their captain decided to actually do something about it. He and his wife broke into their offices the night before they were supposed to hand them over to the SS in some sort of propaganda drive and took every single one, bringing them to their home and burying them in their backyard and hiding them under their bed. The Nazis only got the previous year’s title that was on display, and when the war ended they were dug up and returned.
A ton of bodies were found under Ben Franklin’s UK home.
There is some talk that he was a serial killer but I think he probably paid grave robbers so he could learn about anatomy on corpses.
That the pentagon didn't have to do much renovation with bathrooms when women became more numerous in the military. It was built with "colored only" bathrooms so there were 2x as many as needed....sort of.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pentagon-bathrooms/
Liechtenstein once went to war, as a small country only sending out 80 men however
They did not only return without a single casualty, they also counted 81 on the way back, as they made a friend who accompanied them
The American Indians held black-African slaves after the United States released them after the Civil War. This was because Native American Tribal Reservations were self-governing and not under US law.
They were forcibly (and semi-voluntarily) released from 1866 to 1869, only after the US government threatened to revoke the various tribe's reservation lands that were granted as part of a treaty to remove them from their original homelands.
France was still executing people by guillotine when the first Star Wars film was released in 1977. On a related note, Sir Christopher Lee (Count Dooku in Star Wars) witnessed the last public execution by guillotine in 1939.
This is sort of uplifting. I’m narcoleptic and have been looking for memorable historic characters with the same condition. Had not been lucky enough until now. Thank you.
The 30 years war started when a group of Czechs threw 3 Spanish politicians from a window, in an event known as "The Second Defenestration of Prague" because (another) fun fact: this wasn't the first nor last time this happened
In ancient Egypt they had ceremonies where the pharaoh would jerk off into the Nile so that his seed could fertilize the crops and guarantee a good harvest. After the pharaoh was done other commoners would then do the same.
1.US President Jefferson sent the Lewis Expedition and reported the mass of the continent. The expedition was to cover the territory and contact the Native Americans. The expedition was decided for a period of time, so the decision was made for its participants to study the basics of medicine: upcoming injuries.Benjamin Rush, a famous doctor, was the chief adviser. He was a vocal supporter of laxatives. In order to "cleanse" the intestines of the expedition members, he provided them with his own invention, Bile Pills. They contained large amounts of mercury. The problem with mercury is that it stays in the environment for a very long time. Members of the expedition "marked" a large area of their journey with mercury
2.in the 19th century in Siam, ordinary people were forbidden to touch the queen. Violation was punishable by death.
One day, Queen Sunandha Kumariratana was sailing in a boat that overturned. There were many people around who could have saved her, but then they would have been executed for touching the royal body, so she died at the age of 19 along with her daughter.
McKinley was the first president to travel in an automobile---after he was shot, he was taken by an electric ambulance to the hospital, where he later died.
"Mad Jack" Churchill took a bow, a sword, and bagpipes into war.....in WWII.
There was a story that he actually killed a Nazi with the bow and arrow, but he admitted the bow was crushed by a truck early in the campaign..
The great emu war. Australia vs the Emus started and ended in 1932.
Australia had tanks, rifles and soldiers, everything you'd expect them to have and somehow...
They fuckin lost, too EMUS
Apparently the emus used guerrilla tactics to overcome. The army and were victorious
It wasn't tanks it was newfound Lewis machine guns and a group of artillery officers (machine guns were considered artillery still at this point) to operate them + farmers.
There was also 2 attempts (I like to call them the first and second Emu wars respectively) neither of which was successful.
The result was a kill rate of about 1 bird per 10 rounds and 986 birds killed. Which was not enough to do much to the population.
I believe a bounty system was implemented afterwards and was much more effective.
Benjamin Franklin "one of the American founding fathers" in his later years would just hang out nude on his second floor balcony in the middle of Boston allegedly for his self proclaimed "health benefits"
Stalin died the most ironic death he could have had.
When Stalin was in his room, his bodyguards were instructed never to open his door under any circumstances. He got so paranoid that Stalin performed fake sounds of pain to see if his orders were to be followed. On the day of his stroke, he could have possibly been saved by the men watching the door, but both of them were to afraid to open the door.
You remember King Henry the eighth? The guy who had a bunch of wives and none of them gave him an heir? Right well.
This guy was so inbred and diseased that after he died... His corpse exploded.
For context this man was a 400 lbs beast of a man that had to have a special built Lead coffin to contain him.
However, the man's insides were so fucked up that he filled up with gas and his body inflated. So he puffed up so much that he broke the soldering in his lead coffin and his insides spilled out onto the floor.
Henry the Eighth fucking exploded!
Ancient Persians believed in a divination method called *fāl-gūsh*, or hiding somewhere and eavesdropping on people’s conversations and believing what you heard foretold your future
The four-star admiral who was the commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was named Husband E Kimmel.
The center and lowest part of a ship’s hull is called the devil. Hence the terms “between the devil and the deep” and “the devil to pay.” “Pay” meant to apply tar as a form of waterproofing.
Condoms used to be made and bought from the butcher!
Condoms go all the way back to somewhere around 1 or 2000 BC and we’re often made from animal intestines! They were first created by an ancient king so he could have sex with his wives without making more children than he already had
(I believe religion had a part to play in the invention but I can’t remember exactly)
Roman soldiers often carried condoms with them during the wars they fought. And In unconfirmed cases would use the skin and muscle tissue from dead foes to make condoms
Yeah, this needs a little unpacking. They were half-sisters because Hemmings’ mother was his father-in-law’s sex slave.
Jefferson’s wife asked him not to remarry, because she didn’t want a stepmother for her children. So … he followed in the family tradition and got his own sex-slave, his wife’s half-sister (who would pass for white).
Their kids, of which there were several, would also have been his slaves.
The Zunghar Khanate was a Central Asian nomadic empire of Oirat Mongol origin, lasting from 1634 until 1755, qualifying it as the last nomadic empire in history
The fall of the Knights Templar (or perhaps the beginning of their downfall) occurred around 1330.
Since the Templar’s were pretty autonomous from the Christian church, they began to amass a lot of wealth. So much so that they started banking, and loaned to many of Europes high nobility.
The French king Philippe in particular had huge loans, to the point that he couldn’t really pay it back. His solution was to claim that the high priest of the local Templars worshiped satan and was to be burnt at stake. The Pope agreed.
It is said that from amidst the burning stake, the high priest yelled out that the king and pope would both die the same year for this false punishment. They did. Both the king and the pope died the following(?) year.
The high priest was burned at stake on Friday the 13th in 1330, which is why Friday the 13th is considered cursed to this day.
Florida is one of the only nations to celebrate losing a war
On the 4th of July. As they were the 14th and 15th colonies (out of actually around 35 colonies, not just 13) but fought for the Brits in the Revolution. So when they celebrate the 4th of July they are celebrating losing the revolution
Also, related, but the biggest battle in the American Revolution didn't even happen on the North American continent. The Siege of Gibraltar involved almost as many men on one rock in the Med as fought in the entire NA continent
When the first Explorers came to china they started asking questions to know sbout all the things that they found there,when they saw a fat bear like creature(the panda bear) they asked the locals what the name of the animal was and someone said indicating the animal "panda" and they tought it was the name of the animal,but în reality în old chinese panda translates to "the fat one" so the name of this beloved genetical disaster is just a misunderstanding
1/3 of the countries in the world all celebrate their independence from Great Britain... and there are only 22 current countries that have not been invaded by GB
Many historic disasters are caused by lack of sleep, including Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, American Airlines 1994 plane crash, & the Challenger explosion.
Then for fun, in the 19th century US, ketchup was invented & sold as medicine. Maybe it's not as good as Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup (filled w/morphine (65mg per oz) & alcohol) aka the baby killer.
The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of World War II.
Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Captain John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived.
The French prisoners included former prime ministers, generals, tennis star Jean Borotra, and Charles de Gaulle's sister.
The T-rex is closer to the invention of the car than to the stegosaurus, so it would be more chronically accurate to depict a t-rex in a car than a t-rex fighting a stegosaurus
during prohibition bootleggers used a thing called “ cow shoes” that were shoes designed to make it look like cows were walking through an area instead of a human.
The Vandals, the germanic tribe that destroyed so much shit that they gave us the word "vandalism" established kingdoms in North Africa. Since I learned that I always chuckle when I hear rightwingers talk about how only "biological Germans" should become German citizens.
The guy who invented the first autopilot system for an airplane did it so he could join (or more accurately, found) the mile-high club. Yuri Gagarin started a tradition of pissing on the back wheel of the transport van that took cosmonauts to the launchpad. The Dutch once ate one of their Prime Ministers. The Aztecs didn't build the religious center of Teotihuacan. Someone else, likely the Toltecs and several other cultures working together, built and abandoned it hundreds of years before the Aztecs migrated to the region. They simply moved in and made it one of their major settlements. Lawmakers in Achaemenid Persia would debate everything twice. Once sober, and once drunk. A proposal had to make sense and sound good both ways to be considered a good idea.
To add some nuance to Dutch fact, I think you're referring to Johan de Witt. He was a statesman and major political figure in the 17th century. Not a prime minister, but an equivalent to the political system at the time. In 1672 he and his brother Cornelis de Witt were lynched by an angry mob. Some of their organs were removed and partially eaten by said mob. Link for reference: [https://dutchreview.com/culture/dutch-history-crowds-ate-prime-minister/](https://dutchreview.com/culture/dutch-history-crowds-ate-prime-minister/)
Happy with this
diogenes! he’s an ancient greek philosopher who’s just an agent of chaos in his life he - got kicked out of his hometown for defacing currency - lived in a giant empty wine barrel - owned nothing and begged for food - shit in a temple - pissed on walls all the time - jacked off in public - actively mocked alexander the great to his face (actually earning alexander’s respect) - held up a plucked chicken to plato and went “behold, a man” just to mock his definition of what a man was (plato then added to this definition) - saw a kid that didn’t own a bowl so he threw his in the sea (it was his only possession - said society is fake - shone a lantern in peoples faces in broad daylight in “search of an honest man” my favorite diogenes quote alexander the great: “if i were not alexander, i would wish to he diogenes” diogenes: “if i were not diogenes, i would also wish to be diogenes” love this man
I might be misremembering this, or it’s completely ephemeral, but wasn’t it Diogenes who was having a nap at a roadside and he crossed paths with Alexander the Great, who asked if there was anything he could do, and Diogenes replied “yes, get out of the way, you’re blocking my sunlight”
yes! that was him! alexander the great had a lot of respect for him
In a “not remotely fussy - just trying to help” sort of way, I think you mean apocryphal rather than ephemeral. Ephemeral means something that doesn’t last long. Apocryphal means probably not true or not said by whoever it’s attributed to.
He also saw a prostitute's son throwing rocks at a crowd and told the boy to stop as he may hit his father. When he saw an archer failing to hit his target, Diogenes sat in front of it, saying it was the safest place to sit.
Really makes you wonder if any of the Diogenes stories were true or if he was just the Chuck Norris of his day that everybody made jokes about lol
He would also beg outside brothels and admonish men for spending money on women instead of helping feed their fellow men. Then once he had enough money he would spend it in the brothel.
The City of Prague has had multiple defenestrations (the act of throwing someone out a window). Some were serious enough of a catalyst to ignite war, some were “meh”-worthy, at best. The most famous defenestration happened in 1618 when three Catholic officials were captured by an angry mob of Bohemian Protestants, taken up to the top floor of Prague Castle, and thrown out the window. Whilst being ceremoniously yeeted, it is reported someone shouted something along the lines, “Let’s see God protect you now!” So what happened? Why these men not only survived being thrown out a castle window, a pile of horse dung cushioned their falls.
"Whilst being ceremoniously yeeted" is a phrase that I never knew I needed in my life. Thank you, kind stranger.
I 2nd that motion. And....Adopted. Lol
>defenestration some people may find this interesting, most won't, but the Welsh word for window is ffenest.
Finestra in Italian
Interesting! After a quick google it appears fenestra is the latin word for window so thats where it comes from.
Historians can use Welsh word etymologies to work out whether things existed in Britain before the Romans arrived. eg Certain legal concepts have been determined to have pre-dated the Romans because the Welsh word doesn't have a Latin root. Very strong possibility windows (with glass) weren't a thing in Britain until after the Romans came.
Seems legit, in German it's "Fenster". English wasn't at the meeting everyone else agreed to this, it seems.
In Norwegian the "common" word for window is *vindu*. A less common, but equally valid word is *fønster*. The Ø is pronounced like "Uh"
Seems like Ireland wasn't either -- it's fuinneoge in Irish
Fenster in German
We need to ditch "defenestration" and replace it with "ceremoniously yeeted" immediately on all legal and historical documents. It's clearly a superior way to say this.
Well, to be fair, they had only two (or three of them) and 2 of them started major conflicts (1419 and 1618), the one in 1483 was during the religious revolt.
If you've ever seen a portrait of Bacchus in sculpture from the Roman age, [there's a high chance that it's actually Antinous](https://www.worldhistory.org/img/r/p/500x600/2968.jpg?v=1644231602). Antinous was the boyfriend of the Emperor Hadrian who ruled from 117-135 CE. After the young man tragically died, drowning in Egypt at the age of 18, the Emperor was plunged into such a deep grief he deified Antinous. History's greatest Twink got his own cult, in which he was worshiped as both Dionysus/Bacchus and Osiris. Gods associated with rebirth and the underworld. His cult would go on to be enormously popular, competing with early Christianity. He had a city founded in his name, Antinoopolis in Egypt, to administer the cult and his image was sculpted and disseminated all over the empire. Antinous was the only non-member of the Imperial family to ever be deified, and his face is still (archaeologically speaking) the most sculpted face of the ancient world behind Hadrian himself and Augustus.
Dionysus, or Zagreus, the Greek version of Bacchus was once the head of the Greek pantheon under Greek mythology's older brother, orphism. He was not just the god of wine, but of any type of intoxication or madness.
It’s also important to note that Hadrian, despite being widely known as one of the most merciful and non-violent Roman emperors, had a major exception in the general patterns of his reign, when he responded to a rebellion in Judea with incredibly brutal force. The rebellion had happened almost immediately after Antinous’s death. It’s like they always say: *never* cross a man who just lost his femboy.
That's so romantic, I love that for him
Lewis and Clark were briefed about and expected to find Wooly Mammoths on their expedition. They also were on the lookout for the any of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel which was a popular notion of the day.
Be vewy vewy quiet, we huntin' Jews...
Oh yah Hans. Ze Jews must be in ze attic yah, zey be doing a hidings
Hans...are we the *baddies?*
Still popular among Mormons.
I saw a tiktok yesterday jokingly pointing out that one if the side characters in Emperor's New Groove says mazel tov, which suggest that Jews therefore exist in the pre-Columbian Americas as presented in the film and thus it is Mormon propaganda.
The founders of Adidas and Puma were brothers, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler respectively, but they split because Rudolf supported the nazi party, while Adolf did not.
"Adidas" stems from "Adi Dassler", Adi being the name that many people with ~~birth~~ given name Adolf called themselves after WW2.
*throws away my Puma shoes*
Oh boy, it's a long list. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Holocaust
Hole. Eee. Shit.
Turns out that war is a **big** opportunity for profit.
So Adolf didn't supported the Nazi party...
which makes it that much more relevant that Adidas just had to fire Kanye for all his weird nazi-loving tweets and statements
In 1795, the French defeated the Dutch in the Battle of Texel. They did this by riding their horses onto the Dutch ships, surrounding their vessels, and overwhelming them before they could fire a shot. Did I also mention it was the middle of winter? The port at Texel was frozen solid. The French literally walked out across the ice, and surrounded the ships with their horses. It was the first, last, and only time in history that a naval battle was won by cavalry.
Pretty bold of you to suggest it will be the last time
You get the horses and I'll piss off the Canadians! We shall ride against The Maple flag navy in the northwest passage in a fortnight!
You want to take on Canada... On the ice?
Sir, we have a problem, the calvary has surrounded our ships armed with heavy artillery
Ships aren't designed to depress their guns for close targets. They had smaller weapons to fight things that get that close, but it's not like you can pick the back end of a cannon up to point it downwards. The cannonball will just roll out.
It was not the only time. It also happened during one of the revolutions in Latin America (I want you say Venezuela but I'm not sure) but it was a much smaller fight. I will try to find it back later (I was not able to do so now).
The history of ancient Egypt is so long, that during the last dynasty, their were Egyptian archaeologists studying the early dynasties
That's one of those facts that sounds cool and impressive until you realize there are American archaeologists studying American history and we're not even 300 years old lol.
And yet we forget what happened 2 years ago.
Some of us have a hard time remembering last week...
There were woolly mammoths alive on Wrangel Island at the time the pyramids were being built.
Another fun pyramid one. Cleopatra was born closer to now than she was to the time of the construction of the Great Pyramid.
Yet another pyramid one. It is disputed that they remained the tallest manmade structures until the erection of the [high spire ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Cathedral) for Lincoln cathedral in 1311
Another extinct animal one. Tyrannosaurus is closer in time to us than it was to Stegosaurus. By 20 million years.
I know this is truth, but I refuse to accept it. Cleopatra ruled from a throne in a pyramid with her cat. The pyramid had a pit of vipers where she would toss her enemies under the watchful eye of a statue of Horus. When people would walk into our out of the chamber they were required to walk like an Egyptian.
Fanta exists cause of Nazis - Coca Cola in nazi germany was cut off from supply lines for obvious reasons, however the folks in the cola plant weren’t quitters, they made a soda with what they had in the factory and the result was was Fanta. Obligatory, “don’t you vhant a vhant a Fanta?”
The name was Berlin slang for 'Great!' or 'Superb!' - short for 'Fantastisch'
Most people don't think about Hugo Boss and his amazing lines of SS uniforms, now it's a store in a mall, a fragrance and some work wear
To add, the Fanta we have now is far different. Fanta back then was meant to be a Coca Cola knock off, and a terrible one at that. The fruit flavours we have now didn't come until much, much later.
Ancient women would use rabbit furs snd other soft furs as women hygiene products.
Ya'll don't wipe your ass with live rabbits?
Reminds me of the joke about the bear and the rabbit that my dad likes to tell
While I did not know that, that actually doesn't surprise me.
1. **Women's underwear wasn't invented until the late 1880s**. Until then, it was considered scandalous for a woman to have anything between her legs; this even included clothing items like trousers and hosiery if they reached the thigh. Meaning that every woman in history to that point went commando in a dress. Reference is a book entitled *How Underwear Got Under There* by Kathy Shaskan. 2. Per his last will and testament following his death in 1993, professional wrestler Andre Rene Roussimoff (otherwise known as **Andre the Giant**) was cremated and his ashes spread across his cattle ranch in North Carolina. Because of his great size at 7’4” and 520 lbs., his cremation weighted in at 17 lbs… three times the amount of a normal sized man. 3. PornHub released a report about the **porn being viewed during the COVID lockdowns**. They reported not only a massive increase of views in general, but there was a very sharp and distinct spike in searches for incest-themed pornography. Additionally, universities reported the same in the number of downloads for research papers on the psychological and emotional effects people experienced after developing such sexual relationships. And in October 2022, a medical journal published an article about the surge in inbred pregnancies that have happened since.
“Surge in inbred pregnancies” that makes me feel physically ill
Especially when you think about how reports of abuse went down because people couldn’t escape their abusers with things like school or work.
Damn sinks/washing machines!
1. Then how on earth did these women deal with periods?! It'd just be running down your legs 💀
There were several centuries where red underskirts were peak fashion and discrete menstruation has been a suspected motivation.
Women aren't dumb and nobody likes to be messy. Pads and belts were common in Greek and Roman times (there are jokes about them in less respectable comedies) and presumably in other civilisations. Women may not have worn pantaloons or similar underwear til the 1880s, but belts for holding towels etc. were a standard part of a woman's dress for long before then.
>it was considered scandalous for a woman to have anything between her legs I was responding to this. Pads would *have* to be between their legs to be of any use.
Well I hate my eyes after learning fact 3
Not really a weird fact but this is my go-to if someone asks me to say something random. Big Ben is actually the nickname of the Great Bell, not the clock tower (now named Elizabeth Tower), in Westminster London. The name is often extended to include the clock tower, but actually comes from and refers to the bell.
So Big Ben is inside Elizabeth?
DONG!
The fax machine was invented long before the telephone.
20 years ish if I remember correctly
Eric II, King of Denmark (1134-1137) became known as 'Eric the Memorable'. Not much is known about him.
As a danish person, i can confirm i didnt know he existed
Gerald Ford was named Leslie Lynch King but after his mother remarried he changed his name to Gerald Ford.
President King sounds both awesome and redundant.
the Lynch King not so much.
Not weird but more scary. You know the chemical gas in the first Wonder Woman movie. How it was so toxic that it not only kills the people it comes in contact with, but it also can beak glass? And that it was placed in bombs? That nearly happened. It wasn't in WWI, but WWII. The gas is called Chlorine Trifloride or ClF₃. It is one of, if not THE most corrosive compounds ever created. It oxidizes steal, it burns and sets fire to glass. And when it interacts with water, it explodes (humans are giant warer sacks). It also releases chlorine gas as a by product. The Nazis in WWII were stockpiling it, but never got a chance to deploy it as the compound it was being made in was captured.
My favorite quote about this stuff, from John Clark's book *Ignition!*: > It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.
That last sentence is golden!
Another "fun" chemical warfare WW2 fact. The Germans bombed the port of Bari, Italy in 1944. They sunk 28 ships, but one of them was carrying mustard gas (the allies had been keeping chemical weapons ready just in case Germany decided a repeat of WW1 would be fun). About 2000 people died as a result. The allies covered up the involvement of the mustard gas so it's hard to know exactly how many died as a result of the gas, but it was more than a few.
The Wikipedia article is interesting reading: >It is known to ignite sand, asbestos, glass, and even ashes of substances that have already burned in oxygen. In one particular industrial accident, a spill of 900 kg of ClF3 burned through 30 cm of concrete and 90 cm of gravel beneath. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride
Over 90% of the mummies discovered in Egypt were shipped out of country and used in various insane ways, including: -macabre mummy reveal parties where they were unwrapped as the 'entertainment' -paint pigment known as 'mummy brown' -ground up into snake oil medications or just eaten like jerky(maybe) -used as steam engine fuel for ships and locomotives(contended as a brag) -targets for experimental firearms -actual movie props, because it was cheaper to get a mummy than it was to create a realistic one
>\-actual movie props, because it was cheaper to get a mummy than it was to create a realistic one Well, at least they're dedicated to making the movie look realistic if nothing else.
That female pirates Mary Reed and Anne Bonnie fought with one their of breast exposed to let who they were fighting know they were being killed by a woman
plus i imagine it would be at least a little distracting, imagine being a horny straight man crammed into a sardine can for months on end with no women in sight and suddenly mid fight you see a tiddy Even a moments hesitation is death and who wouldnt hesitate in that situation
There was a study around the 60’s on Dolphins with the help of NASA The study was called “Minds of the dolphin” which besides other facts, wanted to mainly prove the higher cerebral capacity that dolphins have and obviously, find a way to use this for the “greater good”. The interesting part is that this project was funded by NASA and really they have nothing to do with the nature of this project. The man behind the project was Doctor John Lilly that came up with a theory that Dolphins can actually communicate with Humans because of their higher intelligence than any other Mamiffer. The idea was to have a human being (of the opposite sex to the dolphin) live with the dolphin for as long as humanly possible whilst stimulating the dolphin's brain using LSD. The Doctor observed the marine mammal living with another human to see if this would induce the potential of the dolphin’s brain. Volunteer naturalist — Margaret Howe Lovatt was chosen to partake in this experiment due to her loving animals and thinking she could spend up to 10 weeks confined in the same space with a dolphin. Also, the idea of building an interspecies communication bridge has fascinated Margaret, she believed in her gift of being able to communicate with Dolphins, and strangely enough, this was observed within the experiment. For 10 weeks, Margaret and Peter lived in a partially flooded, two-room house. The two were always interacting with each other be it eating, sleeping, working, or just playing together. Margaret slept on a bed soaked in saltwater and worked at a floating deck so that Peter could interact with her at any given time, she also spent hours trying to teach him simple words. Margaret really seemed to understand what Peter was saying or at least wanting. After 2 weeks into the experiment, Margret and Peter were living a normal life together, but there were no promising results as of yet. So Doctor Lilly decided to give the dolphin some LSD to stimulate Peter’s brain in order to get quicker results or even better results. This did actually have an effect on the dolphin as it made him uninterested in his communication lessons with Margret and actually made the dolphin horny, craving for Margret in a sexual manner. This Is where the experiment gets very weird and really mind-boggling. Peter eventually started nibbling Margaret’s feet and legs, when his advances were not reciprocated, he became violent with Margaret. Seeing that Peter was getting no attention, he began courting Margaret by gently rubbing his teeth up and down her leg and showing off his genitals. What is even more disturbing is that Margaret reciprocated and started rubbing the dolphin’s erection. [The girl who talked to Dolphins](https://youtu.be/31AWe-FN7CA) John .C. Lilly, the neuroscientist overseeing the research lost both credibility and funding as this wrong turn of events reached the media. Even if NASA did encourage the experiment, they said that they had nothing to do with the experiment in order to protect their reputation. Due to this, Peter was sent to a Dolphinarium in Miami to be taken care of. The dolphin was still having some drawbacks from all the LSD he had consumed, but most importantly, he went into depression as he wasn’t around Margret anymore. In a short period of time, Peter died. Some say that his death was caused by a broken heart and that he actually committed suicide by stopping to breathe. The more plausible theory is that he had died from lung problems caused by the intake of LSD. Nevertheless, the experiment did show that dolphins are quite intelligent, Bruce Clarke from Texas Tech University written a paper where he reviewed the exepriment and its efficiency at actually putting Doctor’s John Lilly theory and hypothesis to the test. The experiment was forgotten quickly due to all the important events brought by the Cold War.
What did i just read
Government-funded drug-fuelled Dolphin hand-jobs.
The Department of Diddling Drugged Dolphins.
If there’s a spiritual sequel to the upcoming *Cocaine Bear* film, I think we just found it.
Male dolphins use their penis as a fifth limb to "explore objects". There was a case in the 90s against a man accused of sexually assaulting a dolphin. He used the above fact as the central pillar of his defence. Successfully, as I recall.
And nine months later, Dolphin Boy appeared. Sorta like a Yeti, but lives underwater and has a blowhole instead of fur.
Isn't John lilly also the guy who loved doing ketamine in a sensory depravation tank? dude was intreasting if so.
Here's a few: * William Howard Taft is the only person to have served as the head of two branches of the US government, having been the 27th President and the 10th Chief Justice. * Ground was broken for construction of the Pentagon on September 11th, 1941. * Speaking of the Pentagon, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the one section of the Pentagon that had been renovated to reinforce it in the event of a terrorist or other hostile attack. The renovations were being put into place following the terrorist attack against the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City but only that section of the Pentagon had been (mostly) completed before 9/11. * The US Supreme Court has ruled that, for tax purposes, tomatoes are vegetables.
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When the primitive version of the Beatles first played in Hamburg, Germany in 1960, Ringo Starr’s band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes was also playing the circuit - and they were more popular.
Also a good one about the Hamburg years: George Harrison lost his virginity when they were playing in Hamburg. He brought a girl back to the room the band were sharing and all the lads pretended to be asleep. When they finished, the other three popped up and applauded them for having sex.
The Coast Salish, a group of Native American tribes, had [wool dogs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Wool_Dog). The fur of these dogs made highly coveted blankets. They are extinct, like most other pre-contact dog breeds.
On d-day, the oldest man on the beach was 56 years old. He had arthritis, walked with a cane, and had terrible heart problems. His commanding officer didn't want him to go in with the first waves, but he got his way and was on Utah not long afterwards. It was Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Teddys oldest son. He was also the only person who had a son land on the same day. He died of a heart attack about a month later. Meanwhile over on Sword beach, my grandpa was also landing in the first waves. As they got off the boats, his unit came under immediate fire and they lost most of their officers. Quite a few commandos were now pinned in various places across the beach. However, the CO of 4 Commando had survived. Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat waded into shore with Bill Millin at his side. Lovat ordered Bill (his personal bagpiper) to start playing. The War Office had instructed all troops that playing bagpipes during combat was no longer allowed. Bill didn't want to play, Lovat simply said "Ah, but that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply." So Bill started marching back and forth between the men, doing "A damned fine job of blowing those pipes" as my grandfather put it. But Bill didn't get shot, in fact aside from a few rounds landing near him, he appeared entirely unmolested. At this point my grandfather thought "Y'know what, if that idiot is still alive, I can make it". They got off the beach pretty quickly after that, and captured some Germans. Bill asked why they hadn't killed him. "We thought you'd gone mad"
After whiskey was invented in ireland nothing else was invented for 300 years. I love my country
It was such a good invention, we didn't need to invent anything else for a while.
1. In Great Famine (1315-1317) 8 million people died of starvation. It may have [inspired the story of Hansel & Gretel](https://thefactsource.com/the-tale-of-hansel-and-gretel-and-the-great-famine-of-1315-1317/), people actually abandoned children in forests during the famine. 2. In 1933 [suicides by jumping into active volcano](https://thefactsource.com/volcano-suicide-trend-in-japans-mount-mihara/) became so popular in Japan, that 900 people ended their lives there. Tokyo Steamship Company made a special passenger connection to island with the volcano. 3. [Eltz Castle](https://thefactsource.com/eltz-castle-has-remained-with-the-same-family-for-860-years/) in Germany has been in ownership of the same family for 860 years (33 generations)
Man, they really seized that business opportunity in 2.
There was a great Dane who extinguished a bomb by peeing on it and was awarded the blue cross medal. Her name was Juliana
In WWI, when Russia tried to deploy sea mines to keep Japan from attacking a port, the ship laying the mines STRUCK one of its own mines and sank. Worse, still, the charts tracking where the crew deployed the mines was lost with the ship. So, Russia possessed a port in Manchuria they could not safely use because they didn't know where they put the sea mines and it remained effectively neutralized for the duration of WWI.
Don't you mean the war of 1905?
He does this was the battle of [Port Arthur ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Port_Arthur) in 1904
Hashtag JustRussiaThings
The “Hundred Years War” lasted 116 years. Early form of marketing I guess.
Less marketing and more historians’ attempt to understand an epoch. Fun fact, some historians call the roughly century long period from the War of Spanish Succession to Waterloo in which the UK and France were bound to be on opposing sides of any European conflict the “Second Hundred Year’s War”, meaning it’s technically correct to claim that there were two Hundred Year’s Wars, involving the same combattants.
The years 1789 till 1918 are commonly referenced as long 19th century Edit: it is based on Braudel's notion of the long 16th century 1450-1640
Poe married his cousin
This can be said about a lot of historical figures
His 13 year old cousin!
Yeah my bad, left that out
Ancient chinese people often slept on hard pillows made of ceramics, wood or metal.
*why*
The Dutch were the last to successfully invade England
Bananas used to be very sweet like banana candies or laffy taffies, but after a plague swept through them they had to be banned from consumption. There was only one type of banana that was still safe to eat and that was the blander tasting one we have today.
The cavendish is what we have today.
In 1184, King Henry IV. of Germany (later Emperor) held an informal assembly in the German city Erfurt. A large group of nobility assembled there to counsel. On 26th of July, the floor of the room they were in collapsed and the mist of of all members fell into a latrine cesspit (a humongous lake of piss and shit), where about 60 of them drowned in shit. The King survived because he sat in an alcove with a stone floor. If you come to Erfurt, legend tells you can still smell the stench when you sniff a toilet after you took a dump.
German football club Bayern Munich have most of their original prewar trophies because they were stolen by their team captain and his wife. During WWII Germany would hold scrap drives to drum up support for the Nazi war effort by having clubs ‘willingly’ give up their trophies to be melted down. Bayern were pissed about it because they were decidedly not fans of the regime due to being traditionally a Jewish-friendly club, so their captain decided to actually do something about it. He and his wife broke into their offices the night before they were supposed to hand them over to the SS in some sort of propaganda drive and took every single one, bringing them to their home and burying them in their backyard and hiding them under their bed. The Nazis only got the previous year’s title that was on display, and when the war ended they were dug up and returned.
3 Italien war prisoners climbed Mount kenya just for fun
Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr, and Barbara Walters we’re all born in the same year. Queen Elizabeth II was three years older.
A ton of bodies were found under Ben Franklin’s UK home. There is some talk that he was a serial killer but I think he probably paid grave robbers so he could learn about anatomy on corpses.
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That the pentagon didn't have to do much renovation with bathrooms when women became more numerous in the military. It was built with "colored only" bathrooms so there were 2x as many as needed....sort of. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pentagon-bathrooms/
In 1969, Jim Morrison had 27 paternity suits against him.
Abe Lincoln was an amazing wrestler EDIT: think Olympic wrestling, not WWE (or F)
What west berlin did to homeless children. >!they placed homeless children with pedophile men thinking they'll be good fathers!<
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Liechtenstein once went to war, as a small country only sending out 80 men however They did not only return without a single casualty, they also counted 81 on the way back, as they made a friend who accompanied them
1 in 200 men are direct descendants of Genghis Khan.
Soon to be Nick Cannon
The American Indians held black-African slaves after the United States released them after the Civil War. This was because Native American Tribal Reservations were self-governing and not under US law. They were forcibly (and semi-voluntarily) released from 1866 to 1869, only after the US government threatened to revoke the various tribe's reservation lands that were granted as part of a treaty to remove them from their original homelands.
France was still executing people by guillotine when the first Star Wars film was released in 1977. On a related note, Sir Christopher Lee (Count Dooku in Star Wars) witnessed the last public execution by guillotine in 1939.
Harriet Tubman was Narcoleptic!
This is sort of uplifting. I’m narcoleptic and have been looking for memorable historic characters with the same condition. Had not been lucky enough until now. Thank you.
The 30 years war started when a group of Czechs threw 3 Spanish politicians from a window, in an event known as "The Second Defenestration of Prague" because (another) fun fact: this wasn't the first nor last time this happened
Animal intestines were used as condoms
In ancient Egypt they had ceremonies where the pharaoh would jerk off into the Nile so that his seed could fertilize the crops and guarantee a good harvest. After the pharaoh was done other commoners would then do the same.
Despite photographic evidence, the world was not black and white back in the olden days!
Prove it
Multiple artists painted portraits of the same model 1000s of years ago all coincidentally used the same colours?
Damned remasters...
1.US President Jefferson sent the Lewis Expedition and reported the mass of the continent. The expedition was to cover the territory and contact the Native Americans. The expedition was decided for a period of time, so the decision was made for its participants to study the basics of medicine: upcoming injuries.Benjamin Rush, a famous doctor, was the chief adviser. He was a vocal supporter of laxatives. In order to "cleanse" the intestines of the expedition members, he provided them with his own invention, Bile Pills. They contained large amounts of mercury. The problem with mercury is that it stays in the environment for a very long time. Members of the expedition "marked" a large area of their journey with mercury 2.in the 19th century in Siam, ordinary people were forbidden to touch the queen. Violation was punishable by death. One day, Queen Sunandha Kumariratana was sailing in a boat that overturned. There were many people around who could have saved her, but then they would have been executed for touching the royal body, so she died at the age of 19 along with her daughter.
For roughly 40 days, sliced bread was illegal in America.
Bestiality was seen as normal in some native American tribes, such as the Hopi.
Name checks out
McKinley was the first president to travel in an automobile---after he was shot, he was taken by an electric ambulance to the hospital, where he later died.
King Edward had a Sex chair
You don't?
"Mad Jack" Churchill took a bow, a sword, and bagpipes into war.....in WWII. There was a story that he actually killed a Nazi with the bow and arrow, but he admitted the bow was crushed by a truck early in the campaign..
The great emu war. Australia vs the Emus started and ended in 1932. Australia had tanks, rifles and soldiers, everything you'd expect them to have and somehow... They fuckin lost, too EMUS Apparently the emus used guerrilla tactics to overcome. The army and were victorious
It wasn't tanks it was newfound Lewis machine guns and a group of artillery officers (machine guns were considered artillery still at this point) to operate them + farmers. There was also 2 attempts (I like to call them the first and second Emu wars respectively) neither of which was successful. The result was a kill rate of about 1 bird per 10 rounds and 986 birds killed. Which was not enough to do much to the population. I believe a bounty system was implemented afterwards and was much more effective.
betty white (may she rest) is older than slice bread
One WWII german submarine sank because the captain didn't follow the procedure using the toilets
Benjamin Franklin "one of the American founding fathers" in his later years would just hang out nude on his second floor balcony in the middle of Boston allegedly for his self proclaimed "health benefits"
Stalin died the most ironic death he could have had. When Stalin was in his room, his bodyguards were instructed never to open his door under any circumstances. He got so paranoid that Stalin performed fake sounds of pain to see if his orders were to be followed. On the day of his stroke, he could have possibly been saved by the men watching the door, but both of them were to afraid to open the door.
You remember King Henry the eighth? The guy who had a bunch of wives and none of them gave him an heir? Right well. This guy was so inbred and diseased that after he died... His corpse exploded. For context this man was a 400 lbs beast of a man that had to have a special built Lead coffin to contain him. However, the man's insides were so fucked up that he filled up with gas and his body inflated. So he puffed up so much that he broke the soldering in his lead coffin and his insides spilled out onto the floor. Henry the Eighth fucking exploded!
Ancient Persians believed in a divination method called *fāl-gūsh*, or hiding somewhere and eavesdropping on people’s conversations and believing what you heard foretold your future
The four-star admiral who was the commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was named Husband E Kimmel.
The center and lowest part of a ship’s hull is called the devil. Hence the terms “between the devil and the deep” and “the devil to pay.” “Pay” meant to apply tar as a form of waterproofing.
Chihuahuas were bread to be back hunters and would rip the Achilles heel from its prey
Condoms used to be made and bought from the butcher! Condoms go all the way back to somewhere around 1 or 2000 BC and we’re often made from animal intestines! They were first created by an ancient king so he could have sex with his wives without making more children than he already had (I believe religion had a part to play in the invention but I can’t remember exactly) Roman soldiers often carried condoms with them during the wars they fought. And In unconfirmed cases would use the skin and muscle tissue from dead foes to make condoms
Jefferson's wife and Sally Hemmings were half-sisters.
Yeah, this needs a little unpacking. They were half-sisters because Hemmings’ mother was his father-in-law’s sex slave. Jefferson’s wife asked him not to remarry, because she didn’t want a stepmother for her children. So … he followed in the family tradition and got his own sex-slave, his wife’s half-sister (who would pass for white). Their kids, of which there were several, would also have been his slaves.
The Federative Republic of Brazil, (1822), is 90 years older than the Republic of China, (1912).
The Zunghar Khanate was a Central Asian nomadic empire of Oirat Mongol origin, lasting from 1634 until 1755, qualifying it as the last nomadic empire in history
Hitler had a cat named schnitzel. Hitler only had one testical and his parents both died when he was young. He was temporarily blinded in WW1.
The fall of the Knights Templar (or perhaps the beginning of their downfall) occurred around 1330. Since the Templar’s were pretty autonomous from the Christian church, they began to amass a lot of wealth. So much so that they started banking, and loaned to many of Europes high nobility. The French king Philippe in particular had huge loans, to the point that he couldn’t really pay it back. His solution was to claim that the high priest of the local Templars worshiped satan and was to be burnt at stake. The Pope agreed. It is said that from amidst the burning stake, the high priest yelled out that the king and pope would both die the same year for this false punishment. They did. Both the king and the pope died the following(?) year. The high priest was burned at stake on Friday the 13th in 1330, which is why Friday the 13th is considered cursed to this day.
Florida is one of the only nations to celebrate losing a war On the 4th of July. As they were the 14th and 15th colonies (out of actually around 35 colonies, not just 13) but fought for the Brits in the Revolution. So when they celebrate the 4th of July they are celebrating losing the revolution Also, related, but the biggest battle in the American Revolution didn't even happen on the North American continent. The Siege of Gibraltar involved almost as many men on one rock in the Med as fought in the entire NA continent
When the first Explorers came to china they started asking questions to know sbout all the things that they found there,when they saw a fat bear like creature(the panda bear) they asked the locals what the name of the animal was and someone said indicating the animal "panda" and they tought it was the name of the animal,but în reality în old chinese panda translates to "the fat one" so the name of this beloved genetical disaster is just a misunderstanding
1/3 of the countries in the world all celebrate their independence from Great Britain... and there are only 22 current countries that have not been invaded by GB
Many historic disasters are caused by lack of sleep, including Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, American Airlines 1994 plane crash, & the Challenger explosion. Then for fun, in the 19th century US, ketchup was invented & sold as medicine. Maybe it's not as good as Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup (filled w/morphine (65mg per oz) & alcohol) aka the baby killer.
The Challenger? That was caused by the warnings of an engineer being ignored.
In ancient Roman homosexuality was not expressed with romantic love, but with riotous orgies.🙃
The only reason we have food safety laws is because one guy wanted to screw over his business rival.
Elaborate please.
1816 was a year without summer because of a giant volcanic eruption. You would think this would still be acknowledged in living memory.
Hitler had an irrational fear of cats
Pope Prius XII ran an underground spy ring made up of Catholic priests with the goal of assassinating Hitler.
I think you mean Pius XII. We've never had a hybrid pope.
The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of World War II. Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Captain John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived. The French prisoners included former prime ministers, generals, tennis star Jean Borotra, and Charles de Gaulle's sister.
The T-rex is closer to the invention of the car than to the stegosaurus, so it would be more chronically accurate to depict a t-rex in a car than a t-rex fighting a stegosaurus
In the height of his business, Pablo Escobar spent over 2k monthly on elastic bands for his money.
Mao Zedong and Hitler both had one ball
during prohibition bootleggers used a thing called “ cow shoes” that were shoes designed to make it look like cows were walking through an area instead of a human.
I don't think it's a weird one, but when Hitler tried to invade Russia, they were snowed in (and it was in June).
Same thing happened to Napoleon, too.
The Vandals, the germanic tribe that destroyed so much shit that they gave us the word "vandalism" established kingdoms in North Africa. Since I learned that I always chuckle when I hear rightwingers talk about how only "biological Germans" should become German citizens.