Historical Trivia

Mostly.


This amazing specimen, known as the Magnificent Argentine Bird, had a wingspan of 21 feet, and is the largest known bird to ever fly. It lived around 6 million years ago in the open plains of Argentina and the Andes Mountains. It is related to modern-day vultures and storks and had feathers the size of samurai swords.


By using sonar, two strange pyramids have been discovered at a depth of 6,000 ft. Scientists have determined that they are made up of some type of THICK glass, and are absolutely enormous – larger in fact, than the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.
(Problem with this one is there are no coordinates, but allegedly the Bermuda triangle is where they can be found)


Anna Mae Dickinson was 8 when she lost her father and narrowly escaped death on the Titanic, 11 years old when she lost her Aunt Olivia in the torpedoing of the Lusitania, 31 when she lost her cousin Alfred in the Hindenburg explosion, 37 when she lost her nephew Thomas in the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and 97 when her apartment was battered by the collapse of the Twin Towers.


The July 1889 find in Nampa, Idaho of a small human figure during a well-drilling operation caused intense scientific interest. It was unmistakably made my human hands, and was found at a depth of 320 ft. This was an extremely curious depth, as it would place it in an age far before the arrival of man in this part of the world. The find has never been challenged except to say that it was impossible.


In February 1948, distress calls were picked up by numerous ships near Indonesia from the Dutch freighter SS Ourang Medan. The chilling message was, “All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This message was followed by indecipherable Morse code then one final grisly message… “I die.”
Most disturbing of all was the nature of the bodies, all frozen in place looking upwards toward the sun, arms outstretched, mouths open and a contorted look on their faces. There were no signs of injuries on the bodies.


These two men had the same name, were sentenced to the same prison and look nearly identical. However, they’ve never met and aren’t related and happen to be the reason fingerprints are now used in the justice system.


Before there were alarm clocks, there were people like Mary Smith. Smith was known as a knocker-upper, a profession that entailed shooting dried peas at people windows, in order to wake them up for work.


Winston Churchill ‘limited’ himself to 15 cigars a day.


When flour companies learned that the poor in the dust bowl were sewing flour bags to make dresses and clothing for children, they began selling their flour in decorative bags with flowers and such things printed on them so that the clothing made would be a bit more attractive.


Chinese foot binding was an ancient tradition that involved wrapping the feet of young girls. The idea was, the smaller the feet, the more beautiful and feminine the girl.


The strangest and arguably most horrifying mummies are considered to be the Guanajuato Mummies. Their contorted faces give credence to the belief that they were buried alive.


A South African monkey was once awarded a medal and promoted to the rank of corporal during World War I.


Between 1890 and 1910, Bayer’s Heroin was sold as a non-addictive substitute of morphine. It was also used to cure children’s cough.


The Russian mystic, Rasputin, was the victim of a series of murder attempts on this day in 1916. The assassins poisoned, shot and stabbed him in quick succession, but they found they were unable to finish him off. Rasputin finally succumbed to the ice-cold waters of a river.


This building is home to the Shugborough Inscription. Upon closer inspection, people will see the inscription: DOUOSVAVVM.
To this day, the code has eluded decipherment. No one knows who carved it, but some believe it to be a clue left behind by the Knights Templar in regards to the location of the Holy Grail.


They say that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. And during the American Civil War, prostitution was almost as big as the fighting. The conveniently named ‘General Hooker’ ensured that his troops were always satisfied wherever they would go, by towing along a sizeable group of ladies. With such a reputation General Hooker left a long legacy, in that his name is now used as slang for ‘prostitute’.


This giant mushroom in Oregon is over 2,400 years old. Its root system covers 3.4 square miles of land and it’s still growing.


Blackbird, who was the chief of Omaha Indians, was buried sitting on his favorite horse.


There is a belief that Catholic saints do not corrupt. The oldest ‘incorruptible’ is St. Cecilia who was martyred in 177 A.D. Her body remains much as it was 1,700 years ago when it was discovered. Her body defies the natural order and 5 of the 8 stages of a natural death.


For many years, miners in South Africa have been digging up mysterious spheres. They measure an inch or so in diameter, and are etched with three parallel lines. The kicker here is that the rock in which they were found is Precambrian – and dated to 2.8 billion years old.


Joseph Stalin had his photos retouched. When people were killed or disappeared, Stalin just ordered the pictures to be revised.


The Spanish Donkey was a popular (and gruesome) form of torture. A naked victim was placed astride the main board, and various numbers of weights were attached to his or her feet. The agony could almost be fine-tuned by using lighter or heavier weight.


King Tut’s Parents were siblings. DNA confirmed this mummy is both the mother of King Tut and the sister of Tut’s father Akhenaten.

Historical Trivia.

King Richard II was the first Monarch who demanded to be called Your Majesty.

King Richard II, who reigned from 1377 to 1399, is widely believed to have invented
the pocket handkerchief.

We get the word testify from a time when men swore an oath on each others testicles.
In ancient Rome, two men taking an oath of allegiance held each other's testicles, and
men held their own testicles as a sign of truthfulness while bearing witness in a public forum.
The Romans found a word to describe this practice but didn't invent the practice itself.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) is credited with inventing the cat door.

Great Britain was the first county to issue postage stamps, on 1 May 1840.
Hence, UK stamps are the only stamps in the world not to bear the name of the country of origin.

Only one of the Seven Wonders of the World survives today, The Great Pyramid of Giza.

Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, published in 1604, was the first single-language
English dictionary ever published.
It lists approximately 3000 words, defining each one with a simple and brief description.

Halley’s  Comet passes Earth every 76 years, the next time it will return will be in 2062.

When the mummy of Ramses II was sent to France in the mid-1970s, it was issued a passport.
Ramses' occupation? "King (deceased)".

The great conqueror, Attila the Hun, died from a nosebleed.

The Black Death reduced the population of Europe by two thirds , nearly 50 million people
in a 4 year period from 1347 to 1351.

The first animal in space was the female Samoyed husky named Laika, launched by the Soviets in 1957.

Al Capone’s business card stated that he was a used furniture dealer.

Very interesting Ray. The fount of all knowledge.

Thank you Marie.

I do like history, and the snippets that go with it.

More knowledge.

Hope you don't mind if I add another bit on, A Woman that I admire.

Margaret Roper was the Daughter of Sir Thomas More, and one of the most educated Women at that time. When her Father was imprisoned it was she who smuggled his letters and papers out, meaning to publish them later. When her Father was executed, and his Head placed on Tower Bridge, It was again Margaret who bribed the officer on duty to retrieve the head instead of throwing it in the river. Although she was the only non royal Woman to have had a book published, she never realised her dream of publishing her Fathers work, as she died before finishing it. ( It was completed and published by her Husband and Family) She was buried in the Roper Tomb, with her Fathers Skull at her side.

Very interesting WW, thanks for that.

Ditto

http://acidcow.com/pics/20171115/history_facts_01.jpg

Stay the hell away from that Anna Mae Dickinson.... she is a bloody jinx!

1. The Ottoman Empire's Sultan Ibrahim I had 280 of his concubines drowned in the ocean after one of them slept with another man.

2. In medieval times people were put to death for being witches. One anthropologist conjectures as many as 600,000 "witches" lost their lives.

3. Mexican General Santa Anna had an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg.

4. Tens of thousands of baby girls were abandoned each year in China because of the country's one-child policy.

5. Before the mid-19th century dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers.
6. Roman Emperor Gaius made his beloved horse a senator.

7. Ice age Britons used skulls of the dead as cups.

8. After Pope Gregory IX associated cats with devil worship, cats throughout Europe were exterminated in droves.

9. This sudden lack of cats led to the spread of disease because infected rats ran free. The most devastating of these diseases, the Bubonic Plague, killed 100 million people.

10. The Aztecs made human sacrifices to the gods. In 1487, at the dedication of the temple in Tenochtitlan, 20,000 people were put to death.

11. The Mayans also made sacrifices. The most common involved pulling a still-beating heart out of a victim's chest.

12. In the 13th century 30,000 children went on what is known as the Children's Crusade. They were convinced God would allow them to take back the Holy Land without incident, but most died on the journey or were sold into slavery.

13. In ancient Egypt, servants were smeared with honey in order to attract flies away from the pharaoh.

14. Upon dying, some pharaohs were sealed into their tombs alongside their living servants, pets, and concubines.

15. The Romans used human urine as mouthwash.

16. In 1788 the Austrian army attacked itself and lost 10,000 men.

17. Before becoming pope, Pius II wrote a popular erotic book, The Tale of Two Lovers.

18. People were buried alive so often in the 19th century that inventors patented safety coffins that would give the "dead" the ability to alert those above ground if they were still alive.

22. Beginning in 1909 (and continuing into the 1970s), the Australian government instituted a policy of removing Aboriginal children from their parents and teaching them to reject their Aboriginality.

23. In the 1970s Pol Pot's communist regime brainwashed thousands of Cambodian children into becoming soldiers who committed mass murders and other atrocities.

24. Japanese samurais disemboweled themselves with their sword (an act known as seppuko) when in danger of being captured.

25. New research suggests that 15–20 million people were murdered or imprisoned by the Nazis during the Holocaust, much more than previously believed.

26. Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the USSR from 1929–1953, is believed to have killed between 20-60 million people.

27. Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and sold into slavery in the United States, Caribbean, and South America.

28. The introduction of Europeans to the New World saw the Native American population drop from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900.

29. In the 19th century a popular medicine for kids, "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup," included morphine.

30. In 1917, Margaret Sanger was jailed for one month for establishing the first birth control clinic.

31. In Venice during the Renaissance there was a case where a rapist was given the choice of going to jail for six months, paying a fine, or marrying his victim. He chose marriage.

32. Chairman Mao Zedong killed 45 million people during China's "Great Leap Forward" from 1958–1962.

33. Peter the Great executed his wife's lover, then forced her to keep her lover's head in a jar of alcohol in her bedroom.

34. In 16th-century Canada, women drank a potion with beaver testicles ground into it as a form of contraception.

35. Genghis Khan killed 40 million people across Asia and Europe.

36. In the 16th and 17th century wealthy Europeans ate corpses thinking they'd cure them of ailments.

37. They even ate the remains of Egyptian mummies, which tomb raiders risked their lives to steal.

38. In the 15th century Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler impaled 20,000 Ottoman Turks on long, sharp poles on the banks of the Danube.

39. Vlad also enjoyed sopping up his enemies' blood with bread and eating it. This disturbing practice, along with his family name of Dracula and birthplace of Transylvania, inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula.

40. African-American men were not deemed equal members of the Mormon Church until 1978.

41. South Africans gave gay and lesbian soldiers sex changes in an attempt to root out homosexuality in their army.

42. In early Rome a father could legally kill anyone in his family.

43. After finding a 36,000 year old steppe bison preserved in the ice, Alaskan zoology professor R. Dale Guthrie and his team ate some of its flesh. Guthrie said "the meat was well aged but still a little tough."

44. Child killer and rapist Pedro Lopez, known as "The Monster of the Andes," was convicted in 1983 of killing 110 young girls (though he confessed to killing 300).

45. Lopez was released in 1998 after serving Ecuador's maximum sentence of 20 years. His whereabouts are presently unknown.

46. The Roman Emperor Commodus collected all the disabled and little people he could find and ordered them to fight each other to the death with meat cleavers in the Colosseum.

47. Prior to the 1960s tobacco companies ran physician-endorsed ads that suggested smoking had health benefits.

48.Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov attempted to impregnate a chimpanzee with human sperm, but failed in his quest to make a "humanzee."

49. In 755 A.D. the An Lushan rebellion against the Chinese Tang Dynasty resulted in 36 million deaths, or one-sixth of the entire world population.

50. In colonial America pregnant women didn't receive painkillers during delivery because pain was considered God's punishment for Eve's eating the forbidden fruit.

Crackin' post Mr Mac