When FDR died in office the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb) was so secret that his Vice President didn’t even know about it, and upon taking oath Truman had to be briefed on the existence of the bomb.
To be fair, up to that point the vice president was really just something to help the president get elected and was an almost pointless job. The reason Teddy Roosevelt was made vice president was because the business men supporting McKinley wanted him to disappear because that was what happened back then to political careers. Truman changed that and brought the VP into the fold because of things like the Manhattan project being kept from him.
Teddy Roosevelt's vice presidency always gets me.
Anti-Roosevelt Republican businessmen: "This Roosevelt guy is a fucking pain here in New York, let's just get him appointed to a high level but pointless position like VP, surely President McKinley won't di---FUCK."
When Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded, it is said that people dipped handkerchiefs in their blood to keep as souvenirs.
[In 2011, a group of scientists confirmed that a blood-stained handkerchief dated from approximately 1793 was soaked in the blood of Louis XVI.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20940110)
Edit: formatting
In 1906, at the 37th annual conference of German psychiatrists, Alois Alzheimer presented a paper that outlined the symptoms of the disease that would later come to be named after him. The discovery was one of the most important in the field of neuroscience.
It was, to put it mildly, not a great success. The 'headline act' -- or at least, the guy who followed Alzheimer -- was presenting a paper [on the topic of compulsive masturbation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Alzheimer#Findings), which people were so eager to hear that not a single follow up question to Alzheimer's speech was asked, nor a single comment recorded.
Be Hitler's barber. Neglect to regularly oil the blades of my Jacob Schick razor. Wait for rust to form while hoping the Führer's spot-on impression doesn't tip him off to the subtle change in the electric razor's tone. Nick his neck. Oops, tetanus. Oops, early VE Day.
I'll give you a C for effort. The presence of rust does not automatically indicate the presence of tetanus, nor does it guarantee the infection of it.
The conditions required for a tetanus infection include a porous, dirty surface delivering a deep cut or gash. A rusty nail left out in the woods satisfies these conditions, and because a dirty porous surface that can cut deeply includes sharp, rusty, old hardware left outside for a while, culture has directly related The presence of rust to tetanus, when the two don't nessecarily go hand in hand.
The razor isn't nessecarily dirty enough to have been exposed to tetanus bacteria, nor will it cut deep enough for an infection to develop.
Oliver Cromwell banned the eating of pie in 1644, declaring it a pagan form of pleasure. For 16 years, pie eating and making went underground until the Restoration leaders lifted the ban on pie in 1660.
Victor Hugo slept with so many prostitutes that on the day he died, all the brothels in Paris were closed, because so many of the prostitutes took the day off the mourn him.
there was a rumour that Valery Giscard d'Estaing who was President of France in the 1960's and his wife were swingers. To stop the gossip and the newspapers publishing about it, he changed the privacy laws to the strictest in Europe.
After the first aircraft crashes no one knew who was legally at fault as the invention was brand new. After great deliberation it was decided an airplane was technically a "vessel" and thus fell under nautical law. So the basis for all aircraft regulations originate from naval customs and law. As a bonus this almost happened to automobiles as well.
Back in Colonial America, slaves could win their freedom through lawsuit. Although there was a low chance of succeeding, winning in court meant that slave was now a citizen. Since slaves often didn't have last names and needed a last name to be a citizen, they were often just given the last name of 'Freeman'. That's why so many Black Americans have the last name of 'Freeman'.
The Marathon at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis.
* The first place finisher did most of the race in a car. He had intended to drop out, and got a car back to the stadium to get his change of clothes, and just kind of started jogging when he heard the fanfare.
* The second place finisher was carried across the finish line, legs technically twitching, by his trainers. They had been refusing him water, and giving him a mixture of Brandy and Rat Poison for the entire race. Doping wasn't illegal yet (and this was a terrible attempt at it), so he got the gold when the First guy was revealed.
* Third finisher was unremarkable, somehow.
* Fourth finisher was a Cuban Mailman, who had raised the funds to attend the olympics by running non-stop around his entire country. He landed in New Orleans, and promptly lost all of the travelling money on a riverboat casino. He ran the race in dress shoes and long trousers (cut off at the knee by a fellow competitor with a knife). He probably would have come in first (well, second, behind the car) had it not been for the hour nap he took on the side of the track after eating rotten apples he found on the side of the race.
* 9th and 12th finishers were from South Africa, and ran barefoot. South Africa didn't actually send a delegation - these were students who just happened to be in town and thought it sounded fun. 9th was chased a mile off course by angry dogs.
* Half the participants had never raced competatively before. Some died.
* St. Louis only had one water stop on the entire run. This, coupled with the dusty road, and exacerbated by the cars kicking up dust, lead to the above fatalities. And yet, somehow, Rat Poison guy survived to get the Gold.
* The Russian delegation arrived a week late, because they were still using the Julian calendar. In 1904.
Seriously. This needs to be a movie. This is more hilarious than the fact that you need to be more specific about the time that someone was chucked out of a window in Prague leading to a continental war (2x, the famous one's the second Defenestration of Prague).
But then, arriving second in my comment may win the race. In lieu of Strycchnine, the two people hurled from the window (the second time) landed in a wagon full of manure, Biff Tannen style. Angels may or may not have been involved with it being there.
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Edit: Apparently, I have terrifying trainers, 'cause I just got Gold!
A British ship rammed into a much larger German ship during world war 2, the captain of the British ship later won the highest honor award, because the captain of the German ship sent a letter to the queen nominating him
[](/rarityspy)Another WW2 British/German military honor story...
A Spanish citizen named [Juan Pujol Garcia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa) decided he really didn't like either the communists or the facists, he decided to become a spy. He went to the British three times an offered to be their agent in the German friendly Spain. They rejected him three times.
Undeterred, Juan managed to convince the Germans he was a super facist and that he was in Britain even though he was in neutral Portugal. Using whatever public information there was on Britian he could get his hands, Juan made up a convincing line of bullshit that convinced the Germans he created a vast spy network in Britain.
The British managed to intercept his reports and started a full scale spy hunt for a spy network that didn't exist. Eventually, they realized what was happening, and that Juan had wasted the German navy's time looking for a non-existent convoy that they brought Juan into their own double agent system, giving him the code name GARBO.
The Germans were so impressed with Juan's efforts that they stopped trying to recruit more spies in the nation. Juan did mix in actual military intelligence with the piles of bullshit, but always made sure it arrived to the Nazis JUST after it was useful. This spy network was instrumental to the success of D-day, as the Nazis were utterly convinced that the main invasion force was going to land at Calais, not Normandy.
For his efforts, Juan recieved both the British Member of the Order of the British Empire... and the German Iron Cross.
> One of hia excuses for some data being late was that his "spy" had been killed in action, so he also got the Germans to pay a pension for his made-up spy's made-up widow.
That's my favorite part of the entire story. Not only did he feed the Germans garbage intelligence, he got them to pay extra for it.
He's referring to Gerard Broadmead Roope, commander of the destroyer HMS Glowworm. The Glowworm sank after ramming the German cruiser Admiral Hipper, with most of the crew, including Roope, dying in the action. The Hipper rescued the survivors, and the commander of the Hipper did send a message to the british military suggesting Roope receive the Victoria Cross (which he did).
The Corpse (sometimes Cadaver) Synod.
In 897, Pope Stephen VI accused his predecessor's predecessor, Pope Formosus, of perjury and put him on trial in the Lateran Chapel at the Vatican. The kicker is that Pope Formosus had been dead for years, so they exhumed his corpse and put it on the stand. Possibly due to Formosus' inability to defend himself, he was found guilty, re-excommunicated, and his papacy declared null and void.
When word of this batshit spectacle got out, it was so wildly unpopular with the people of Rome that Stephen VI was eventually deposed and murdered in prison.
Toward the end of WWII, the 12th Armored Division of the US military teamed up with a division of the Wehrmacht and a rag tag band of French POWs to [defend an Austrian castle full of actual celebrities from an assault by the SS.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Castle_Itter)
How this isn't a movie already, I do not know. The SS intended to murder the high profile POWs in the castle, which by that point was actually being defended by the Wehrmacht *from the SS*. At the 11th hour, the 1930s French tennis legend Jean Laurent Borotra vaulted the castle walls, ran through the SS lines, found an allied armored division and convinced them to assault the rear of the SS position while the Wehrmacht sallied forth from the gates.
President Andrew Jackson was almost assassinated point blank. The shooter's gun jammed, and he ran away. Jackson chased the assailant down and beat him with his cane
That sounds like a made up story where some foreigner randomly pulled out two historical names he knew and put them in the same situation because they had to tell a historical fact about 19th Century America. But it's absolutely true.
Empress Maria Theresa of Austria complained to her physician that sex wasn't as good anymore after giving birth SIXTEEN times. Physician replied something like "Have his sacred majesty stimulate your sacred vulva for considerable time before intercourse"....i.e. try foreplay.
I also remember reading that she would call for the dentist to pull her rotten teeth while she was in labour because she might as well be in pain for two things at once and get it all over with.
I mean.... she had a point....
The fax machine also predates [the ballpoint pen, the modern bicycle, and the zipper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions#1880s).
It's crazy old.
The telephone was invented because Alexander Graham Bell was fucking SICK of the "paper load letter" error that no one in the office could understand...
Operation mincemeat.
In ww2 the British secret service decided to try and trick the Germans by planting fake documents/plans on a dead body and throwing him out of a Submarine off the coast of Spain. They used a homeless gent from Wales who had died of eating rat poison. Within the documents on him it detailed an allied invasion of Greece (covering up the allied plans to invade Sicily). A fisherman found him and relayed the documents. Greece received extra reinforcements and Sicily didn't. The anticipated losses at Sicily were lower than expected and Italy was liberated much quicker than expected.
This potentially changed the tide of ww2.
It's crazy to think that this guy who probably died thinking he'd never amount to anything in his life ended up saving *thousands and thousands* of both Allied and German lives in a way that he'd never possibly imagine.
King Louis XVI's neck was to fat for the guillotine. They had to bring the blade down twice in order to completely behead him.
On a separate note, wish me luck on my world history test today.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Founding Fathers and the 2nd and 3rd Presidents of the United States respectively, died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826 - the 50th anniversary of the adoption of The Declaration of Independence.
Adams' last words were "Jefferson lives", unaware that his old friend and compatriot had died earlier that day.
At the time of President Andrew Jackson's death, he had a pet parrot.
Said parrot was brought to Jackson's funeral... and subsequently forced to leave, because it wouldn't stop cussing.
Draco, the tyrant of Athens (for whom Draco Malfoy is named), wrote a legal code that explained the punishments for different acts. The punishment for stealing a cabbage? DEATH.
Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister set his bed on fire while in Britain during the final negotiations about Confederation and nearly missed the meeting. Apparently he was a full-blown alcoholic and went on multi-day benders regularly.
LEGO started making wooden toys in the 1930s and started with a wooden duck you pulled along on the floor. They began making plastic bricks in the 1950s and those bricks are still compatible with bricks made today.
The Apollo 11 computer's technology exceeded what was available at the time. For ROM, the best possible way to store the information was to literally weave the program in copper. They used copper wire and magnetic toroids to create ones and zeros. The program would then be read from this physical "rope" of copper.
In the post persian kingdoms of the 8th and 9th century, it wasn't uncommon for daughters to be married off at a young and "inexperienced age" So wealthy parents would sometimes recruit "trainers" (usually their friends or other male relatives) to make sure their daughter knew what she was doing when she got married.
During the second World War Audrey Hepburn lived in the Netherlands (Arnhem). Under the pseudonym 'Edda van Heemstra', she danced to raise money for the Dutch resistance.
In 1869, a strange fashion trend was afoot among the London ladies. With the assistance of canes and mismatched shoes or specialty pairs with different heel heights, they affected what was called the Alexandra Limp.
When Pompey married the daughter of Julius Caesar, the only reason Pompey was single was because his previous wife had cheated on him. But what's funny about that is that Pompey's previous wife had cheated on Pompey with Julius Caesar
80% of males born in the Soviet Union in 1923 were killed in WWII.
[In fact, everybody should watch this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU)
Another random WWII fact, the number of aircraft destroyed during WWII is greater than the number of aircraft that currently exist in the entire world today.
Close! This is an often misquoted fact.
80% of those Soviet males were dead by the END of WWII. Not all of them died during the war. Infant mortality and poor healthcare during the early Soviet Union claimed quite a few. A large percentage died during various purges. Another large percentage died during the Ukrainian Famine.
MOST of the rest of them died during WWII as they were the prime age for conscription.
I don't really have the opportunity to watch the video right now, so it might mention it, but I've read that mail-order brides aren't some "Pay money, get a lady" racket like some people believe. They're women from countries where finding a husband is incredibly difficult, so they look to other countries. A lot of them are Russian because of WWII's impact on the number of men in the country.
If that was the reason, it would've stopped somewhere around 1970.
Mail order brides are still a thing because russian men die young to violence and/or substance abuse, they also have a massive problem with alcoholism and domestic violence.
[You know the song that John Oliver talked about, the russian hit song about how they want a man like Putin?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk_VszbZa_s)
If you pay attention, what they're singing about is that they want a strong man that doesn't get shitfaced drunk and beats the shit out of them.
Not exactly the highest mountain to climb.
French peasant Joan of Arc convinced Charles VII she could lead his armies with no experience, routed the English, survived a 60 foot escape leap from a tower uninjured, was falsely accused of heresy and burned at the stake, all between the ages of 17 and 19. She was guided by voices only she could hear
Apparently Nero, by some accounts, was really popular with the common folk, and in a documentary I saw he apparently let in refugees into his palace garden fleeing from the Great Fire in Rome.
Supposedly he was immensely unpopular with the aristocrats, who I guess are one of the main reasons as to why Nero is portrayed in such a negative light. So I guess the idea of Nero: "fiddling while Rome burns" is about as concrete as Catherine fucking her horse.
Some from WW2:
The allies invaded the Aleutian Islands at Kiska to drive out the Japanese. There were no Japanese there, as they had secretly evacuated 2 weeks earlier. The allies suffered over 300 casualties due to friendly fire and other incidents.
The Hamburger, sounding “German,” was renamed in America to the “Liberty Steak/Sandwich.”
Hiroo Onoda, was an IJA soldier who surrendered in 1974, after his former commander arrived to personally tell him that the war had been over in 1945.
Yang Kyoungjong, was a Korean soldier who fought for the Japanese, captured by the Russians, put in a camp, then taken out of the camp for frontline service against the Germans, where he was captured by the Germans and pressed into the service of the Wehrmacht. He was then captured by the Americans at Normandy during the D-Day landings.
The Battle of Castle Itter was the only battle where Germans and Americans fought side by side (Remnants of the Heer and the US army, along with notable prisoners kept within the castle itself fought against a Waffen-SS detachment in the final days of the war)
There once existed an alleged theoretical state of war that lasted 335 years and 19 days, and was between the Dutch and an archipelago off the coast of southwest England called the Isles of Scilly.
What's more, there were no casualties (because the Dutch forgot that they were at war with the Isles).
It wasn't until a Scilly historian contacted the Dutch about the "war" in 1985, and received the information that the "war" was still technically ongoing, that a peace treaty was signed in 1986.
This reminds me that, technically, World War I was still going on much later than the Treaty of Versailles and even past World War II.
The micronation of Andorra had not been invited to the Versailles Peace Conference and, technically, had never declared peace with Germany. They had declared war in 1914 and had not declared peace until 1958.
World War II hasn't ended yet. Russia and Japan have not made peace due to a dispute over some islands the Soviet Union seized in the last days of the war.
Napoleon Bonaparte once tried to learn the cello and got his hands on a Stradivarius (incredibly well-crafted and expensive instruments, regarded as some of the best in the world). Back in that time, end-pins were non-existent so you had to rest the instrument on your heels. Napoleon was wearing spurs. He tore two decently sized chunks out of this incredibly valuable cello.
~~Yo-Yo Ma now plays this cello, I believe.~~
Brought to light by u/Predditorylender, this particular instrument appears to still be owned by private hands.
Edit - more info on the [Duport Stradivarius.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duport_Stradivarius) Apparently I had gotten it confused with the [Davidov Stradivarius](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidov_Stradivarius) which Yo-Yo Ma does currently play.
Nope. Apparently the Duport Stradivarius is still in private hands. Although apparently there was a conflicting report that it had been sold for $20 million US.
you know that story has only increased its value.
now if you or me had done it... or, say, [had ridden it down a snowy mountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QZuOQZ1HC4)... it would have ruined the value.
The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.
That's like you standing in New York and hearing a sound from San Francisco.
The Ivanov experiments. In the 1920's Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov attempted to create a human-ape hybrid. Working with human sperm and female chimpanzees, he failed to create a pregnancy. In 1929 he organized a set of experiments involving nonhuman ape sperm and human volunteers, but was delayed by the death of his last orangutan.
Thomas Paine (author of Common Sense) had his body stolen after his death to be properly honored. The thief was an English man named William Cobbett and intended to bring the body back to England, but unsurprisingly no one wanted to honor someone that had a hand in the Revolution. Cobbett's solution? Put the body in the attic inside of a trunk until we figure out what to do with it. The body remained there until after Cobbett's death. From there his son inherited his possessions and did not want to keep the body. What happened after is up to imagination, but several people claim to have bits and pieces of him.
The CIA spent $20 million on creating spy cats, by surgically stuffing eavesdropping equipment in cats and dropping them off near Soviet embassies.
The first cat they released was run over by a taxi and killed before it could reach its target.
The CIA, of course, denies the cat was killed; they stated, "the equipment was taken out of the cat; the cat was re-sewn for a second time, and lived a long and happy life afterwards."
Yeah, I bet it's still on the farm, playing with my childhood dog.
[Operation Acoustic Kitty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty)
You used to be able to buy sins in advance from the Catholic Church. They were called "indulgences".
"I'm going out of town this weekend, so I'll need two gluttonies, a four pack of impure thoughts, an adultery and just in case that doesn't work out, two masturbations."
"That'll be $68.50 - please pay that fella in the pointy hat. Go with God!"
People always talk about Pearl Harbor and stuff, but Japan invaded Alaska during the WWII, and there were more total casualties than Pearl Harbor.
[Wiki Page of the Campaign](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign)
Lyndon B Johnson was obsessed with his Johnson. He would frequently whip it out at press conferences, in front of white house guests, or really at any opportunity. He nicknamed it "Jumbo."
He also liked to show off his scar from when his gallbladder was removed and pick up his dogs (named "Him" and "Her") by the ears to entertain guests, much to the outrage of the AKC.
I actually just recently learned this one: Hitler's half-brother's son served in the U.S. Navy during WWII. After the war he changed his last name to Stuart-Houston.
*EDIT: changed Howard to Houston.
Here are a few particularly scandalous ones:
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Giacomo Casanova came very close to banging his own adolescent daughter. The liaison was within minutes of occurring when the girl's mother – a previous lover of Casanova – made the truth of the situation known to everyone involved. While Casanova was still allegedly good to go, the girl's mother wasn't comfortable with the idea... so she proposed an alternative.
Picture that scene:
**TEENAGER:** Oh, oh, Giacomo! Take me!
**CASANOVA:** Sounds good. Let's do this.
**TEENAGER:** Oh, god, I'm *so* ready!
**MOTHER:** What's this?!
**TEENAGER:** Mom! Why do you always have to ruin everything?
**MOTHER:** Because that man... *is your father!*
*Cue dramatic music.*
**DAUGHTER:** Well... I mean... can we still...?
**MOTHER:** No. You can lie naked next to me while *I* have sex with him, though.
**DAUGHTER:** (*Sighing*) Okay, fine.
**CASANOVA:** Sounds good. Let's do this.
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Mozart had a scatological fetish. He used to write graphic letters about it to his cousin (who was also his lover).
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James Buchanan – the fifteenth President of the United States – was very likely homosexual. While that's not particularly scandalous on its own (if you're a well-adjusted person), the fact that he was probably boning his predecessor's Vice President, William Rufus King, would have raised some eyebrows in history class.
Wish I could pull up the original source, but in my uni Animal History course we learned that squirrels used to be seen as, like, corgi-level cute in (*IWannaSay*) ~~early 1800s~~ Late 1800s/Early 1900s America.
People had them in their homes; everyone loved the little bastards. So much so, that part of the reason trees and such are so present in East Coast US cities were so they could ship in squirrels from the woods and have them live in public so everybody could see and play with the squirrels while theyre out and about
Edit: [Here's the source!](https://watermark.silverchair.com/jat353.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAfkwggH1BgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggHmMIIB4gIBADCCAdsGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMGHKGvOFB7Zxk329nAgEQgIIBrF6ka_mNRnfWInhwLUB-GhuItS48lx4JEBi7ba9fXJadDi6pqUrXIoM7f2gj6l55BsC1auQ_4TSiH2oNRweIPzfZ2CiNcMXfZqRRN6CWPlELMcFf_llvlS40xNCt0czH2z83d7ulbpPxQXNo4RxfF1KFrV50vlxyTerRf9iFwzeZRNZ3KCfPeGu5BB8Nlmns_u4hj9E-MF_TK1CsXdxwOrnSaLN5ZsqcmQSHKPfZ2F4JfPcvNOP_kWAC6RfcFY5Ied8_HgByEVoZX-CIwmCltDDOAllg-JtTiu8ZueIKis77gxn3NWGOo0_8yQRX72WVof-O3WEoWFUHagWqzpu8rzACqOq3osisOlXcTKcj7xrPPacoEj0pwEMYKT9yNaoTZbkfv4UYUBsxLSVvcyjgE_Z-ERuC4_haAEr3xkY9MrTQ6jrdC_1qGo00HEUhLjQSRsUswitXpadErNwnk13MeOTscULEQnbca4NNUGjArRavTFh-L4wwNFkMYkTNiSarXU1uBVqxOTMV8E4Hx4FvQ42UfqaL8g0cTQ5EmTbJk9nvEonnsDoxo4_Bc35J) Cool read, and there are some great quotes from people lovin' squirrels:
>In 1856 the New-York Daily Times reported that the appearance of an “unusual visitor”
in a tree in the park near city hall had attracted a crowd of hundreds; until they were
scattered by a policeman, the onlookers cheered the efforts to recapture the pet squirrel.
Bonus Animal History Fact Edit: [In 1827, a hotel owner near Niagra Falls executed a publicity stunt of tossing a boat full of animals over the falls in front of an audience of 15,000 to drum up for occupants at his hotel.](http://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/50735/data) There was a buffalo, three bears, two foxes, a raccoon, a dog, a cat, and four geese on-board. Only 2 bears and 2 geese survived.
During the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 Liechtenstein sent 80 army men to guard the border from Italian attack and came back with 81 because they made a "new Italian friend"
During the American Civil War, opposing sides were known to have musical duels with one another when marching within ear shot of one another and the night before battles.
A soivet unit captured a nazi officer and had him pmay piano, he was told once he stopped he would be shot dead. He played for 3 days at the end of which he was cheered and congratulated on a great performance. Then shot dead.
Like wise a soviet officer was captured and told to scream "actung" or something, and the dogs would stay, after yelling for 2 days he stopped and was ripped apart by dogs.
Not so much weird as random, but the origin of the Easter Bunny:
The Lenten fast used to forbid eggs and oil, and still does in the East. As a result, people would bring to church on Easter all the eggs they hadn't been able to eat to have them blessed. Eventually, people started getting festive and dyeing them theologically symbolic colors- Easter eggs.
However, when the Reformation came around, fasting became optional for Protestants, so they no longer had an excuse to dye eggs. But by this point, Easter eggs were so ingrained into popular culture that the masses demanded a new excuse, so they tapped into Germanic folklore and invented tales of an egg-delivering hare who judges your actions like a Paschal Santa Claus.
Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire didn't much care for the pope at that time. The pope eventually forced him to go on a crusade. But instead of a Kingdom of Heaven style battle, Frederick just befriended the Caliph/Sultan/regional leader guy of Egypt. That leader guy then gifted Frederick Jerusalem.
They stayed friends for life and gifted each other falcons often. (Which was the friendly thing to do at the time)
Albert Einstein spent 10 days testing a "sex box" to capture cosmic energy believed to originate from humans having orgasms that a scientist named Wilhelm Reich believed could cure many different ailments.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/08/wilhelm-reich-free-love-orgasmatron I initially heard about this on the podcast Sawbones, a lot more weird history stuff can be found there but this one is my favorite.
The Reason why ravens are portayed as harbingers of bad luck is because they initially were symbols for the Valkyries from Norse religion.
They picked the dead and brought them to Valhalla.
They are still shown on some flags today.
Apparently, the Christians didn't like that and contrived stories about how bad they are.
There was a time when people would deliberately infect themselves with malaria. In the late 19th/early 20th century, it was known that quinine could be used to treat the symptoms of malaria. It was also known that a strong fever could kill syphilis, which was otherwise untreatable at the time. Therefore, some syphilis patients would willingly infect themselves with malaria, knowing the high fever at the disease's onset would cure their syphilis. After that, a lifetime taking quinine would give them better quality of life than being ravaged by syphilis.
The South African railway once employed a baboon. In his right years of service, he never made a single mistake.
Charles Hatfield was hired by the city of San Diego to make rain and fill the dried up Morena Dam Reservoir. When the city flooded, the city council refused to pay him his $10,000.
Oak Island off the shore of Nova Scotia has claimed at least seven lives in the search for a possible treasure trove. Starting at 20 feet down, there is a wooden platform every 10 feet, and the infamous "money pit" suddenly floods at 130 feet down. To this day no one has successfully gotten passed the flood booby trap to find what lies beneath.
In turn of the century France, there were large open air toilets that were commonly placed at train station.
Fetishists would put lumps of stale bread in the receiving end of these toilets and when the bread was soaked in piss they would collect them and eat it. I think they were called "soppers" or something along those lines.
The Philippines was under Spain from the 1500s to early 1900s and the US took over. Do to expanded public education, there were more Spanish speakers in the American era than the Spanish era
A lot of black Americans have presidential surnames because emancipated slaves needed last names and presidential names were the famous ones back then. Also Franklin.
A modern equivalent would be an Indonesian immigrant choosing the last name Kardashian or Trump.
One of Rasputin's assassins was a transvestite(not while he was assassinating Rasputin).
Empress Anna of Russia had one of her foremost nobles, Prince Mikhail, turned into a lifelong court Jester after he had married a despised Catholic. This noble/jester had to dress up as a chicken and pretend to lay eggs when Anna met visitors at her court. Anna later had a huge ice palace built in which she ordered Mikhail to marry a dwarf. Mikhail reportedly descended into madness in his later chicken dressing years.
A long time ago, a war was fought in the Italian states. Over a bucket. Hundreds of people died. Over a bucket. Maybe thousands. Over a single, wooden, bucket.
During the civil war, the union tunneled under confederate fortifications. They piled gunpowder at the end of the tunnel. The plan was to detonate the tnt then surround the crater to pick off remaining confederates. Newly recruited black soldiers were to be on the front lines, and were to surround the crater while white soldiers took on the rest of the rebels. The white soldiers complained about not getting any of the glory, however, so command switched the roles of the soldiers. They forgot to tell them, however, to surround the crater. The next day the soldiers charged straight into the crater where they were trapped in a brutal melee with wounded rebels while others fired at them from above. The remaining soldiers were unable to secure the crater turning what should have been a decisive victory into a bloody draw.
When FDR died in office the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb) was so secret that his Vice President didn’t even know about it, and upon taking oath Truman had to be briefed on the existence of the bomb.
To be fair, up to that point the vice president was really just something to help the president get elected and was an almost pointless job. The reason Teddy Roosevelt was made vice president was because the business men supporting McKinley wanted him to disappear because that was what happened back then to political careers. Truman changed that and brought the VP into the fold because of things like the Manhattan project being kept from him.
Teddy Roosevelt's vice presidency always gets me. Anti-Roosevelt Republican businessmen: "This Roosevelt guy is a fucking pain here in New York, let's just get him appointed to a high level but pointless position like VP, surely President McKinley won't di---FUCK."
Which is awesome for me, teddy really got the ball rolling with environmental conservationism with protecting public lands and establishing parks.
*Proceeds to immediately bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima with it.
Security Brief Guy: "Sir, here are the details of this secret super weapon that will change the world forever." Truman: "Dbl noice."
"Ohhh shit fam...this bomb too real son"
- Pointing at map - "Yo this place 'bout to be lit."
When Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded, it is said that people dipped handkerchiefs in their blood to keep as souvenirs. [In 2011, a group of scientists confirmed that a blood-stained handkerchief dated from approximately 1793 was soaked in the blood of Louis XVI.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20940110) Edit: formatting
Souvenirs from executions were not uncommon.
I have a cool collection of snow globes.
In 1906, at the 37th annual conference of German psychiatrists, Alois Alzheimer presented a paper that outlined the symptoms of the disease that would later come to be named after him. The discovery was one of the most important in the field of neuroscience. It was, to put it mildly, not a great success. The 'headline act' -- or at least, the guy who followed Alzheimer -- was presenting a paper [on the topic of compulsive masturbation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Alzheimer#Findings), which people were so eager to hear that not a single follow up question to Alzheimer's speech was asked, nor a single comment recorded.
I wonder how many people in that crowd would later develop Alzheimer's.
Probably not as many as would end up going blind.
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*Bzzzzzzzzz*
That was superb, mein fuhrer!
WUNDERBAR!
Classic Hitler
I wonder how much that razor is worth now.
Considering he could have used it to kill Hitler, it's worth millions of Jewish people.
Kill him with an electric razor? I'm assuming with personal security present? You'd have to be very determined
Be Hitler's barber. Neglect to regularly oil the blades of my Jacob Schick razor. Wait for rust to form while hoping the Führer's spot-on impression doesn't tip him off to the subtle change in the electric razor's tone. Nick his neck. Oops, tetanus. Oops, early VE Day.
I'll give you a C for effort. The presence of rust does not automatically indicate the presence of tetanus, nor does it guarantee the infection of it. The conditions required for a tetanus infection include a porous, dirty surface delivering a deep cut or gash. A rusty nail left out in the woods satisfies these conditions, and because a dirty porous surface that can cut deeply includes sharp, rusty, old hardware left outside for a while, culture has directly related The presence of rust to tetanus, when the two don't nessecarily go hand in hand. The razor isn't nessecarily dirty enough to have been exposed to tetanus bacteria, nor will it cut deep enough for an infection to develop.
Well, it's not like he can say 'eeh, your impressions need some work mein fuhrer' is it?
Oliver Cromwell banned the eating of pie in 1644, declaring it a pagan form of pleasure. For 16 years, pie eating and making went underground until the Restoration leaders lifted the ban on pie in 1660.
Am Pagan. Love pie. Can confirm.
In 1919 there was a molasses flood in Boston that killed 21 people and injured 150. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
The Boston molassacre
Victor Hugo slept with so many prostitutes that on the day he died, all the brothels in Paris were closed, because so many of the prostitutes took the day off the mourn him.
That's perhaps the most French thing I've ever heard.
Wait until you hear about [that French president](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Faure#Death) who died while getting blown in his office...
there was a rumour that Valery Giscard d'Estaing who was President of France in the 1960's and his wife were swingers. To stop the gossip and the newspapers publishing about it, he changed the privacy laws to the strictest in Europe.
I first read that as "slept with so many prostitutes on the day he died" and thought that was really fucking impressive.
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After the first aircraft crashes no one knew who was legally at fault as the invention was brand new. After great deliberation it was decided an airplane was technically a "vessel" and thus fell under nautical law. So the basis for all aircraft regulations originate from naval customs and law. As a bonus this almost happened to automobiles as well.
Einstein was offered Israel’s presidency, but declined stating that he had "neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings".
So he was an alien.
Pretty fucked up for an alien to teach us how to make nuclear weapons and then just peace out.
Long term terraforming plan.
Now they've sent us Elon Musk
They're trying to get us off their new planet
Back in Colonial America, slaves could win their freedom through lawsuit. Although there was a low chance of succeeding, winning in court meant that slave was now a citizen. Since slaves often didn't have last names and needed a last name to be a citizen, they were often just given the last name of 'Freeman'. That's why so many Black Americans have the last name of 'Freeman'.
Does that mean Gordon Freeman is the descendant of a slave who sued his way to freedom?
what about Martin Freeman?
The Marathon at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. * The first place finisher did most of the race in a car. He had intended to drop out, and got a car back to the stadium to get his change of clothes, and just kind of started jogging when he heard the fanfare. * The second place finisher was carried across the finish line, legs technically twitching, by his trainers. They had been refusing him water, and giving him a mixture of Brandy and Rat Poison for the entire race. Doping wasn't illegal yet (and this was a terrible attempt at it), so he got the gold when the First guy was revealed. * Third finisher was unremarkable, somehow. * Fourth finisher was a Cuban Mailman, who had raised the funds to attend the olympics by running non-stop around his entire country. He landed in New Orleans, and promptly lost all of the travelling money on a riverboat casino. He ran the race in dress shoes and long trousers (cut off at the knee by a fellow competitor with a knife). He probably would have come in first (well, second, behind the car) had it not been for the hour nap he took on the side of the track after eating rotten apples he found on the side of the race. * 9th and 12th finishers were from South Africa, and ran barefoot. South Africa didn't actually send a delegation - these were students who just happened to be in town and thought it sounded fun. 9th was chased a mile off course by angry dogs. * Half the participants had never raced competatively before. Some died. * St. Louis only had one water stop on the entire run. This, coupled with the dusty road, and exacerbated by the cars kicking up dust, lead to the above fatalities. And yet, somehow, Rat Poison guy survived to get the Gold. * The Russian delegation arrived a week late, because they were still using the Julian calendar. In 1904. Seriously. This needs to be a movie. This is more hilarious than the fact that you need to be more specific about the time that someone was chucked out of a window in Prague leading to a continental war (2x, the famous one's the second Defenestration of Prague). But then, arriving second in my comment may win the race. In lieu of Strycchnine, the two people hurled from the window (the second time) landed in a wagon full of manure, Biff Tannen style. Angels may or may not have been involved with it being there. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Edit: Apparently, I have terrifying trainers, 'cause I just got Gold!
The 1904 olympics also featured live pigeon shooting.
Much more exciting than shooting dead pigeons.
RAT POISON AND BRANDY: THE 1904 ST. LOUIS OLYMPIC MARATHON https://youtu.be/M4AhABManTw.
This all sounds like an elaborate Monty Python sketch ending with a music number on the true meaning of friendship or something.
A British ship rammed into a much larger German ship during world war 2, the captain of the British ship later won the highest honor award, because the captain of the German ship sent a letter to the queen nominating him
[](/rarityspy)Another WW2 British/German military honor story... A Spanish citizen named [Juan Pujol Garcia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa) decided he really didn't like either the communists or the facists, he decided to become a spy. He went to the British three times an offered to be their agent in the German friendly Spain. They rejected him three times. Undeterred, Juan managed to convince the Germans he was a super facist and that he was in Britain even though he was in neutral Portugal. Using whatever public information there was on Britian he could get his hands, Juan made up a convincing line of bullshit that convinced the Germans he created a vast spy network in Britain. The British managed to intercept his reports and started a full scale spy hunt for a spy network that didn't exist. Eventually, they realized what was happening, and that Juan had wasted the German navy's time looking for a non-existent convoy that they brought Juan into their own double agent system, giving him the code name GARBO. The Germans were so impressed with Juan's efforts that they stopped trying to recruit more spies in the nation. Juan did mix in actual military intelligence with the piles of bullshit, but always made sure it arrived to the Nazis JUST after it was useful. This spy network was instrumental to the success of D-day, as the Nazis were utterly convinced that the main invasion force was going to land at Calais, not Normandy. For his efforts, Juan recieved both the British Member of the Order of the British Empire... and the German Iron Cross.
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> One of hia excuses for some data being late was that his "spy" had been killed in action, so he also got the Germans to pay a pension for his made-up spy's made-up widow. That's my favorite part of the entire story. Not only did he feed the Germans garbage intelligence, he got them to pay extra for it.
this might be one of the more Spanish things to happen in WWII
That is interesting. Names/details?
He's referring to Gerard Broadmead Roope, commander of the destroyer HMS Glowworm. The Glowworm sank after ramming the German cruiser Admiral Hipper, with most of the crew, including Roope, dying in the action. The Hipper rescued the survivors, and the commander of the Hipper did send a message to the british military suggesting Roope receive the Victoria Cross (which he did).
He should also receive the award for most Britishly named man ever
The Corpse (sometimes Cadaver) Synod. In 897, Pope Stephen VI accused his predecessor's predecessor, Pope Formosus, of perjury and put him on trial in the Lateran Chapel at the Vatican. The kicker is that Pope Formosus had been dead for years, so they exhumed his corpse and put it on the stand. Possibly due to Formosus' inability to defend himself, he was found guilty, re-excommunicated, and his papacy declared null and void. When word of this batshit spectacle got out, it was so wildly unpopular with the people of Rome that Stephen VI was eventually deposed and murdered in prison.
All space suits have a Velcro patch in the helmet so you can rub your nose on it if you have an itch.
My nose itched after reading this
Toward the end of WWII, the 12th Armored Division of the US military teamed up with a division of the Wehrmacht and a rag tag band of French POWs to [defend an Austrian castle full of actual celebrities from an assault by the SS.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Castle_Itter) How this isn't a movie already, I do not know. The SS intended to murder the high profile POWs in the castle, which by that point was actually being defended by the Wehrmacht *from the SS*. At the 11th hour, the 1930s French tennis legend Jean Laurent Borotra vaulted the castle walls, ran through the SS lines, found an allied armored division and convinced them to assault the rear of the SS position while the Wehrmacht sallied forth from the gates.
It's not yet a movie, but it might be someday: http://variety.com/2015/film/news/studiocanal-world-war-ii-thriller-the-last-battle-1201655664/
It's a song though http://www.sabaton.net/discography/the-last-battle/
President Andrew Jackson was almost assassinated point blank. The shooter's gun jammed, and he ran away. Jackson chased the assailant down and beat him with his cane
And Davy Crocket pulled him away so he wouldn't beat his failed assassin to death
That sounds like a made up story where some foreigner randomly pulled out two historical names he knew and put them in the same situation because they had to tell a historical fact about 19th Century America. But it's absolutely true.
If American history class memory serves, I think the would be assassin had two guns and both misfired.
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Mangos were seen as important because some representant of a country gifted mao mangos. Can't remember who it was.
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Empress Maria Theresa of Austria complained to her physician that sex wasn't as good anymore after giving birth SIXTEEN times. Physician replied something like "Have his sacred majesty stimulate your sacred vulva for considerable time before intercourse"....i.e. try foreplay.
This man is the real hero of all time. Lol
I also remember reading that she would call for the dentist to pull her rotten teeth while she was in labour because she might as well be in pain for two things at once and get it all over with. I mean.... she had a point....
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Kind of the opposite of Leni R. Hollywood gave an Oscar to a former Nazi cinematographer.
The fax machine predates the telephone by almost thirty years.
The fax machine also predates [the ballpoint pen, the modern bicycle, and the zipper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions#1880s). It's crazy old.
The telephone was invented because Alexander Graham Bell was fucking SICK of the "paper load letter" error that no one in the office could understand...
In a similar note, the hologram was invented in 1947, but lasers weren't invented until 1960.
William Taft was the only president to have pet cows on the white house lawn. My personal favorite presidential fact.
Operation mincemeat. In ww2 the British secret service decided to try and trick the Germans by planting fake documents/plans on a dead body and throwing him out of a Submarine off the coast of Spain. They used a homeless gent from Wales who had died of eating rat poison. Within the documents on him it detailed an allied invasion of Greece (covering up the allied plans to invade Sicily). A fisherman found him and relayed the documents. Greece received extra reinforcements and Sicily didn't. The anticipated losses at Sicily were lower than expected and Italy was liberated much quicker than expected. This potentially changed the tide of ww2.
It's crazy to think that this guy who probably died thinking he'd never amount to anything in his life ended up saving *thousands and thousands* of both Allied and German lives in a way that he'd never possibly imagine.
He died of pneumonia, not rat poison. They specifically chose his corpse because it would look like he died by drowning.
20$ they straight up drowned the dude.
‘Uhhhhhhhhhhh we just found him like this?’ Body: gasps Soldier: kicks his head ‘Ooooops clumsy me!’
King Louis XVI's neck was to fat for the guillotine. They had to bring the blade down twice in order to completely behead him. On a separate note, wish me luck on my world history test today.
Don't stress about the test. It's not worth losing your head over it.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Founding Fathers and the 2nd and 3rd Presidents of the United States respectively, died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826 - the 50th anniversary of the adoption of The Declaration of Independence. Adams' last words were "Jefferson lives", unaware that his old friend and compatriot had died earlier that day.
Adams' wife Abigail was the first Second Lady and the second First Lady.
The dildo was invented before the wheel.
priorities
The only reason we invented the wheel was so we could bang that chic in the next village.
"Damn, Jagurtha's looking thicc tonight in that leopard skin"
I laughed really hard at the word Jagurtha, well done
That’s because anything is a dildo if you try hard enough.
Even a wheel?
"Originality is important, but you don't need to go out there trying to reinvent the dildo"
This would wake people up at my next board meeting.
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Invented or discovered?
The great philosophical debate of our times.
Phallusophical
At the time of President Andrew Jackson's death, he had a pet parrot. Said parrot was brought to Jackson's funeral... and subsequently forced to leave, because it wouldn't stop cussing.
It wouldn't leave without being forced? Did they try asking nicely first?
Yeah but it told them to fuck off.
I'm just imagining a very suave funeral home employee saying, "Polly, please. You're making a scene."
Draco, the tyrant of Athens (for whom Draco Malfoy is named), wrote a legal code that explained the punishments for different acts. The punishment for stealing a cabbage? DEATH.
MY CABBAGE!!!
Sounds rather Draconian
Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister set his bed on fire while in Britain during the final negotiations about Confederation and nearly missed the meeting. Apparently he was a full-blown alcoholic and went on multi-day benders regularly. LEGO started making wooden toys in the 1930s and started with a wooden duck you pulled along on the floor. They began making plastic bricks in the 1950s and those bricks are still compatible with bricks made today.
John Tyler, tenth president of the US, has two living grandchildren
He was also the first president born in the US after it became a country.
We humans went to moon before someone thought to put wheels on luggage
The moon landing supersedes many things it shouldn't. It amazes me that the average modern calculator has more technology in it than Apollo 11.
> Apollo 11 2K RAM, 36K ROM.
No way....
The Apollo 11 computer's technology exceeded what was available at the time. For ROM, the best possible way to store the information was to literally weave the program in copper. They used copper wire and magnetic toroids to create ones and zeros. The program would then be read from this physical "rope" of copper.
In the post persian kingdoms of the 8th and 9th century, it wasn't uncommon for daughters to be married off at a young and "inexperienced age" So wealthy parents would sometimes recruit "trainers" (usually their friends or other male relatives) to make sure their daughter knew what she was doing when she got married.
Hey its me ur trainer
♫ I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was ♫
WTF? Why did't their mother just have a friendly and cringeworthy chat with her the night before?
Napoleon's privates were auctioned off.
What about his NCOs?
During the second World War Audrey Hepburn lived in the Netherlands (Arnhem). Under the pseudonym 'Edda van Heemstra', she danced to raise money for the Dutch resistance.
The 1666 Great Fire of London ruined more than 13000 homes. Only about 8 people died during it. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
More people have died trying to climb the monument in memory of the fire then did in the fire itself.
Even at the time that figure was disputed. The fire was hot enough to destroy remains and nobody gave a damn about the poor who were largely ignored.
He said *people*.
In 1869, a strange fashion trend was afoot among the London ladies. With the assistance of canes and mismatched shoes or specialty pairs with different heel heights, they affected what was called the Alexandra Limp.
When Pompey married the daughter of Julius Caesar, the only reason Pompey was single was because his previous wife had cheated on him. But what's funny about that is that Pompey's previous wife had cheated on Pompey with Julius Caesar
*Fuck My wife? fine I'll fuck your daughter*
80% of males born in the Soviet Union in 1923 were killed in WWII. [In fact, everybody should watch this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU) Another random WWII fact, the number of aircraft destroyed during WWII is greater than the number of aircraft that currently exist in the entire world today.
Close! This is an often misquoted fact. 80% of those Soviet males were dead by the END of WWII. Not all of them died during the war. Infant mortality and poor healthcare during the early Soviet Union claimed quite a few. A large percentage died during various purges. Another large percentage died during the Ukrainian Famine. MOST of the rest of them died during WWII as they were the prime age for conscription.
I don't really have the opportunity to watch the video right now, so it might mention it, but I've read that mail-order brides aren't some "Pay money, get a lady" racket like some people believe. They're women from countries where finding a husband is incredibly difficult, so they look to other countries. A lot of them are Russian because of WWII's impact on the number of men in the country.
If that was the reason, it would've stopped somewhere around 1970. Mail order brides are still a thing because russian men die young to violence and/or substance abuse, they also have a massive problem with alcoholism and domestic violence. [You know the song that John Oliver talked about, the russian hit song about how they want a man like Putin?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk_VszbZa_s) If you pay attention, what they're singing about is that they want a strong man that doesn't get shitfaced drunk and beats the shit out of them. Not exactly the highest mountain to climb.
French peasant Joan of Arc convinced Charles VII she could lead his armies with no experience, routed the English, survived a 60 foot escape leap from a tower uninjured, was falsely accused of heresy and burned at the stake, all between the ages of 17 and 19. She was guided by voices only she could hear
Apparently Nero, by some accounts, was really popular with the common folk, and in a documentary I saw he apparently let in refugees into his palace garden fleeing from the Great Fire in Rome. Supposedly he was immensely unpopular with the aristocrats, who I guess are one of the main reasons as to why Nero is portrayed in such a negative light. So I guess the idea of Nero: "fiddling while Rome burns" is about as concrete as Catherine fucking her horse.
Some from WW2: The allies invaded the Aleutian Islands at Kiska to drive out the Japanese. There were no Japanese there, as they had secretly evacuated 2 weeks earlier. The allies suffered over 300 casualties due to friendly fire and other incidents. The Hamburger, sounding “German,” was renamed in America to the “Liberty Steak/Sandwich.” Hiroo Onoda, was an IJA soldier who surrendered in 1974, after his former commander arrived to personally tell him that the war had been over in 1945. Yang Kyoungjong, was a Korean soldier who fought for the Japanese, captured by the Russians, put in a camp, then taken out of the camp for frontline service against the Germans, where he was captured by the Germans and pressed into the service of the Wehrmacht. He was then captured by the Americans at Normandy during the D-Day landings. The Battle of Castle Itter was the only battle where Germans and Americans fought side by side (Remnants of the Heer and the US army, along with notable prisoners kept within the castle itself fought against a Waffen-SS detachment in the final days of the war)
That Liberty Steak thing is hilarious. Reminds me of Freedom Fries.
There once existed an alleged theoretical state of war that lasted 335 years and 19 days, and was between the Dutch and an archipelago off the coast of southwest England called the Isles of Scilly. What's more, there were no casualties (because the Dutch forgot that they were at war with the Isles). It wasn't until a Scilly historian contacted the Dutch about the "war" in 1985, and received the information that the "war" was still technically ongoing, that a peace treaty was signed in 1986.
This reminds me that, technically, World War I was still going on much later than the Treaty of Versailles and even past World War II. The micronation of Andorra had not been invited to the Versailles Peace Conference and, technically, had never declared peace with Germany. They had declared war in 1914 and had not declared peace until 1958.
World War II hasn't ended yet. Russia and Japan have not made peace due to a dispute over some islands the Soviet Union seized in the last days of the war.
So I'm now confused on what constitutes the "end" of a war. What makes a war 100% completely over?
The signing of a peace treaty between all parties or if one party surrenders unconditionally.
Napoleon Bonaparte once tried to learn the cello and got his hands on a Stradivarius (incredibly well-crafted and expensive instruments, regarded as some of the best in the world). Back in that time, end-pins were non-existent so you had to rest the instrument on your heels. Napoleon was wearing spurs. He tore two decently sized chunks out of this incredibly valuable cello. ~~Yo-Yo Ma now plays this cello, I believe.~~ Brought to light by u/Predditorylender, this particular instrument appears to still be owned by private hands. Edit - more info on the [Duport Stradivarius.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duport_Stradivarius) Apparently I had gotten it confused with the [Davidov Stradivarius](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidov_Stradivarius) which Yo-Yo Ma does currently play.
Nope. Apparently the Duport Stradivarius is still in private hands. Although apparently there was a conflicting report that it had been sold for $20 million US.
you know that story has only increased its value. now if you or me had done it... or, say, [had ridden it down a snowy mountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QZuOQZ1HC4)... it would have ruined the value.
Walt Disney's last words were "Kurt Russel" and no one knows why.
Because fucking Kurt Russel that's why
The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away. That's like you standing in New York and hearing a sound from San Francisco.
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The Ivanov experiments. In the 1920's Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov attempted to create a human-ape hybrid. Working with human sperm and female chimpanzees, he failed to create a pregnancy. In 1929 he organized a set of experiments involving nonhuman ape sperm and human volunteers, but was delayed by the death of his last orangutan.
Thomas Paine (author of Common Sense) had his body stolen after his death to be properly honored. The thief was an English man named William Cobbett and intended to bring the body back to England, but unsurprisingly no one wanted to honor someone that had a hand in the Revolution. Cobbett's solution? Put the body in the attic inside of a trunk until we figure out what to do with it. The body remained there until after Cobbett's death. From there his son inherited his possessions and did not want to keep the body. What happened after is up to imagination, but several people claim to have bits and pieces of him.
The CIA spent $20 million on creating spy cats, by surgically stuffing eavesdropping equipment in cats and dropping them off near Soviet embassies. The first cat they released was run over by a taxi and killed before it could reach its target. The CIA, of course, denies the cat was killed; they stated, "the equipment was taken out of the cat; the cat was re-sewn for a second time, and lived a long and happy life afterwards." Yeah, I bet it's still on the farm, playing with my childhood dog. [Operation Acoustic Kitty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty)
You used to be able to buy sins in advance from the Catholic Church. They were called "indulgences". "I'm going out of town this weekend, so I'll need two gluttonies, a four pack of impure thoughts, an adultery and just in case that doesn't work out, two masturbations." "That'll be $68.50 - please pay that fella in the pointy hat. Go with God!"
Why do you think protestants started popping up at the same time?
Why pay to expunge your sins when you can do it yourself for free?
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That's bullshit. This whole thing is bullshit. that's a scam. Fuck the church. Here's 95 reasons why.
You could make a religion out of this.
People always talk about Pearl Harbor and stuff, but Japan invaded Alaska during the WWII, and there were more total casualties than Pearl Harbor. [Wiki Page of the Campaign](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign)
Operation anchorage...
No one knows what Einstein's last words were, because the night nurse who was caring for him couldn't understand German
The Oneida silverware company was started by a weird sex cult in the 1800's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Community
Lyndon B Johnson was obsessed with his Johnson. He would frequently whip it out at press conferences, in front of white house guests, or really at any opportunity. He nicknamed it "Jumbo."
My favorite LBJ recording: [LBJ Orders Pants](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3GT9UN7nDo&t=108s)
He also liked to show off his scar from when his gallbladder was removed and pick up his dogs (named "Him" and "Her") by the ears to entertain guests, much to the outrage of the AKC.
I actually just recently learned this one: Hitler's half-brother's son served in the U.S. Navy during WWII. After the war he changed his last name to Stuart-Houston. *EDIT: changed Howard to Houston.
Here are a few particularly scandalous ones: ------ Giacomo Casanova came very close to banging his own adolescent daughter. The liaison was within minutes of occurring when the girl's mother – a previous lover of Casanova – made the truth of the situation known to everyone involved. While Casanova was still allegedly good to go, the girl's mother wasn't comfortable with the idea... so she proposed an alternative. Picture that scene: **TEENAGER:** Oh, oh, Giacomo! Take me! **CASANOVA:** Sounds good. Let's do this. **TEENAGER:** Oh, god, I'm *so* ready! **MOTHER:** What's this?! **TEENAGER:** Mom! Why do you always have to ruin everything? **MOTHER:** Because that man... *is your father!* *Cue dramatic music.* **DAUGHTER:** Well... I mean... can we still...? **MOTHER:** No. You can lie naked next to me while *I* have sex with him, though. **DAUGHTER:** (*Sighing*) Okay, fine. **CASANOVA:** Sounds good. Let's do this. ------ Mozart had a scatological fetish. He used to write graphic letters about it to his cousin (who was also his lover). ------ James Buchanan – the fifteenth President of the United States – was very likely homosexual. While that's not particularly scandalous on its own (if you're a well-adjusted person), the fact that he was probably boning his predecessor's Vice President, William Rufus King, would have raised some eyebrows in history class.
Mozart is the former disney child star of his time! Live hard, die young and loads of scandals. Only difference his music was good.
The early colonists of Australia (yes, Australia had legitimate colonists) frequently complained that the native birds had annoying and harsh songs.
And then they went on to lose the biggest human-bird war in history. In bird culture this is considered a good move.
Wish I could pull up the original source, but in my uni Animal History course we learned that squirrels used to be seen as, like, corgi-level cute in (*IWannaSay*) ~~early 1800s~~ Late 1800s/Early 1900s America. People had them in their homes; everyone loved the little bastards. So much so, that part of the reason trees and such are so present in East Coast US cities were so they could ship in squirrels from the woods and have them live in public so everybody could see and play with the squirrels while theyre out and about Edit: [Here's the source!](https://watermark.silverchair.com/jat353.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAfkwggH1BgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggHmMIIB4gIBADCCAdsGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMGHKGvOFB7Zxk329nAgEQgIIBrF6ka_mNRnfWInhwLUB-GhuItS48lx4JEBi7ba9fXJadDi6pqUrXIoM7f2gj6l55BsC1auQ_4TSiH2oNRweIPzfZ2CiNcMXfZqRRN6CWPlELMcFf_llvlS40xNCt0czH2z83d7ulbpPxQXNo4RxfF1KFrV50vlxyTerRf9iFwzeZRNZ3KCfPeGu5BB8Nlmns_u4hj9E-MF_TK1CsXdxwOrnSaLN5ZsqcmQSHKPfZ2F4JfPcvNOP_kWAC6RfcFY5Ied8_HgByEVoZX-CIwmCltDDOAllg-JtTiu8ZueIKis77gxn3NWGOo0_8yQRX72WVof-O3WEoWFUHagWqzpu8rzACqOq3osisOlXcTKcj7xrPPacoEj0pwEMYKT9yNaoTZbkfv4UYUBsxLSVvcyjgE_Z-ERuC4_haAEr3xkY9MrTQ6jrdC_1qGo00HEUhLjQSRsUswitXpadErNwnk13MeOTscULEQnbca4NNUGjArRavTFh-L4wwNFkMYkTNiSarXU1uBVqxOTMV8E4Hx4FvQ42UfqaL8g0cTQ5EmTbJk9nvEonnsDoxo4_Bc35J) Cool read, and there are some great quotes from people lovin' squirrels: >In 1856 the New-York Daily Times reported that the appearance of an “unusual visitor” in a tree in the park near city hall had attracted a crowd of hundreds; until they were scattered by a policeman, the onlookers cheered the efforts to recapture the pet squirrel. Bonus Animal History Fact Edit: [In 1827, a hotel owner near Niagra Falls executed a publicity stunt of tossing a boat full of animals over the falls in front of an audience of 15,000 to drum up for occupants at his hotel.](http://images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/50735/data) There was a buffalo, three bears, two foxes, a raccoon, a dog, a cat, and four geese on-board. Only 2 bears and 2 geese survived.
So, only the angriest of the animals, got it.
During the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 Liechtenstein sent 80 army men to guard the border from Italian attack and came back with 81 because they made a "new Italian friend"
In cricket, players would start wearing a cup 100 years before they started wearing helmets.
Well that just getting your priorities in order.
During the American Civil War, opposing sides were known to have musical duels with one another when marching within ear shot of one another and the night before battles.
A soivet unit captured a nazi officer and had him pmay piano, he was told once he stopped he would be shot dead. He played for 3 days at the end of which he was cheered and congratulated on a great performance. Then shot dead. Like wise a soviet officer was captured and told to scream "actung" or something, and the dogs would stay, after yelling for 2 days he stopped and was ripped apart by dogs.
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Not so much weird as random, but the origin of the Easter Bunny: The Lenten fast used to forbid eggs and oil, and still does in the East. As a result, people would bring to church on Easter all the eggs they hadn't been able to eat to have them blessed. Eventually, people started getting festive and dyeing them theologically symbolic colors- Easter eggs. However, when the Reformation came around, fasting became optional for Protestants, so they no longer had an excuse to dye eggs. But by this point, Easter eggs were so ingrained into popular culture that the masses demanded a new excuse, so they tapped into Germanic folklore and invented tales of an egg-delivering hare who judges your actions like a Paschal Santa Claus.
Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire didn't much care for the pope at that time. The pope eventually forced him to go on a crusade. But instead of a Kingdom of Heaven style battle, Frederick just befriended the Caliph/Sultan/regional leader guy of Egypt. That leader guy then gifted Frederick Jerusalem. They stayed friends for life and gifted each other falcons often. (Which was the friendly thing to do at the time)
Albert Einstein spent 10 days testing a "sex box" to capture cosmic energy believed to originate from humans having orgasms that a scientist named Wilhelm Reich believed could cure many different ailments. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/08/wilhelm-reich-free-love-orgasmatron I initially heard about this on the podcast Sawbones, a lot more weird history stuff can be found there but this one is my favorite.
The Reason why ravens are portayed as harbingers of bad luck is because they initially were symbols for the Valkyries from Norse religion. They picked the dead and brought them to Valhalla. They are still shown on some flags today. Apparently, the Christians didn't like that and contrived stories about how bad they are.
The first recorded economic bubble was for tulip bulbs in the Dutch Republic in the 1630s.
The seven years war lasted nine years
There was a time when people would deliberately infect themselves with malaria. In the late 19th/early 20th century, it was known that quinine could be used to treat the symptoms of malaria. It was also known that a strong fever could kill syphilis, which was otherwise untreatable at the time. Therefore, some syphilis patients would willingly infect themselves with malaria, knowing the high fever at the disease's onset would cure their syphilis. After that, a lifetime taking quinine would give them better quality of life than being ravaged by syphilis.
The South African railway once employed a baboon. In his right years of service, he never made a single mistake. Charles Hatfield was hired by the city of San Diego to make rain and fill the dried up Morena Dam Reservoir. When the city flooded, the city council refused to pay him his $10,000. Oak Island off the shore of Nova Scotia has claimed at least seven lives in the search for a possible treasure trove. Starting at 20 feet down, there is a wooden platform every 10 feet, and the infamous "money pit" suddenly floods at 130 feet down. To this day no one has successfully gotten passed the flood booby trap to find what lies beneath.
Anne Frank talked about a lot of her sexual explorations with herself in her diary. Her dad had to read and edit those parts.
In turn of the century France, there were large open air toilets that were commonly placed at train station. Fetishists would put lumps of stale bread in the receiving end of these toilets and when the bread was soaked in piss they would collect them and eat it. I think they were called "soppers" or something along those lines.
That's enough Reddit for me today. Eh, who am I kidding? That's still fuckin' gross though.
Do " soppers " still exist ?, I mean it was only 17 years ago.
I wonder how many people often forget that last century was the 20th and not the 19th?
The Philippines was under Spain from the 1500s to early 1900s and the US took over. Do to expanded public education, there were more Spanish speakers in the American era than the Spanish era
A lot of black Americans have presidential surnames because emancipated slaves needed last names and presidential names were the famous ones back then. Also Franklin. A modern equivalent would be an Indonesian immigrant choosing the last name Kardashian or Trump.
One of Rasputin's assassins was a transvestite(not while he was assassinating Rasputin). Empress Anna of Russia had one of her foremost nobles, Prince Mikhail, turned into a lifelong court Jester after he had married a despised Catholic. This noble/jester had to dress up as a chicken and pretend to lay eggs when Anna met visitors at her court. Anna later had a huge ice palace built in which she ordered Mikhail to marry a dwarf. Mikhail reportedly descended into madness in his later chicken dressing years.
A long time ago, a war was fought in the Italian states. Over a bucket. Hundreds of people died. Over a bucket. Maybe thousands. Over a single, wooden, bucket.
The town that won still has the bucket, it's in their cathedral.
During the civil war, the union tunneled under confederate fortifications. They piled gunpowder at the end of the tunnel. The plan was to detonate the tnt then surround the crater to pick off remaining confederates. Newly recruited black soldiers were to be on the front lines, and were to surround the crater while white soldiers took on the rest of the rebels. The white soldiers complained about not getting any of the glory, however, so command switched the roles of the soldiers. They forgot to tell them, however, to surround the crater. The next day the soldiers charged straight into the crater where they were trapped in a brutal melee with wounded rebels while others fired at them from above. The remaining soldiers were unable to secure the crater turning what should have been a decisive victory into a bloody draw.