We really should pay closer attention in History class, or at the very least, every once and awhile we should watch a program on the History channel. At first glance the past merely seems like a boring, overstuffed cavalcade of useless information. But when you look closer you realize the past is a fascinating onslaught of entertaining tales and shocking facts. There are some things you learn when you dig a little deeper that will leave you gobsmacked.
Redditor pygmypuffonacid wanted to compare notes about what we all know when it comes to history by asking...
What is your favorite random historical fact?
Kurt.
Giphy"One of the most famous and important mathematicians and logicians in history, Kurt Gödel, developed a crippling obsessive fear of being poisoned. He would only eat food that his wife prepared. When she ended up being hospitalized for six months, he literally starved himself to death."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel
BattleHall
In 1814....
"In 1814 when the British marched into Washington DC, they didn't burn everything down right away."
"First they sat down to eat the freshly prepared presidential meal at the White House and then they made a bunch of presidential proclamations like better training for American troops and freedom for all the slaves."
tarepandaz
Eat Up.
"Charles Darwin ate every animal that he studied."
PrimalMusk
"I'm suddenly uncomfortable that he wrote a book called The Descent of Man."
AtheistBibleScholar
Lupercalia.....
"The Romans celebrated a festival known as the Lupercalia. This involved priests sacrificing a goat, briefly anointing themselves with its blood, cutting off strips of its flesh for use as whips, and running naked around the Palatine hill whipping anyone they encountered, laughing as they did so."
"Typically women would attempt to get themselves whipped as this supposedly ensured fertility and a safe childbirth."
TheSuperCactus
Mongolia.
"The mongols waited until the winter to start their invasion of Russia."
LackOfAnotherName
"This doesn't surprise me. Mongolia is very, very, cold. It's capital city, Ulaanbaatar, is the coldest capital city in the world. The average high temperature in January is 3.9 degrees Fahrenheit, with an average low of -14.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Compared to that, Moscow's balmy."
sapphic_saracen
Kilt It.
Giphy"Wearing kilts was illegal in Scotland after the failed Jacobite Uprising of 1745-6. However, there were very few British troops in the remote Highlands and islands, so the more bold Scotsmen would wear kilts when they were near home. On the island of Seil, then, there was an inn called "Tigh an Truish," or "House of Trousers," where those men would change from a kilt to pants when they were going to the more tightly controlled mainland (and vice versa)."
Obligatory-Reference
During the siege....
"During the siege of Tenochtitlan, cortez's conquistadors build a trebuchet that fired one shot. It fired straight up, and the projectile destroyed the trebuchet on its way back down."
VolJin
Good Ole Abe...
"Abraham Lincoln visited a friend often at his farm. They were sharpening knives for some reason, Lincoln used it last and the man couldn't find the whetstone for several years until Lincoln returned. When asked where Lincoln had left it, he walked over to the post they were next to when using it, and picked it up off the top of it, where the man couldn't see just a foot out of sight."
GrizzledTheGrizzly
Tommy F....
"In 1956 a man named Tommy Fitzpatrick stole a small plane from New Jersey for a bet and then landed it perfectly on the narrow street in front of the bar he had been drinking at in Manhattan. Two years later, he did it again after someone didn't believe he had done it the first time."
"Here is an article about it."
-eDgAR-
Everyone loves Mickey....
Giphy"Hitler loved Disney movies, and did some watercolours of Bashful and Doc."
InternetCrab7
Ben Bathes.
Giphy"Ben Franklin used to go through his morning routine butt naked. He called them "air baths."
-ItsMyProcess
"I'm gonna use this the next time someone asks me to shower."
-blink0r
Richard's the Bomb!
"King Richard's troops catapulted live bee hives as "bombs" during the Third Crusade."
-IguanaTapThatAxolotl
"Richard the Lionheart was truly fascinating. He pretty much steamrolled his way to Jerusalem before realizing, "Wait a second... hmm okay, so if I lay siege to the city, I'd be pinned down if enemy reinforcements arrive. And even if I take the city... well heck, I'm the King of England."
"I can't just stay in Jerusalem for the rest of my life, and I can't leave my entire army behind to hold the city either. And if I leave a small force to hold the city... crap, they'll be left hugely outnumbered and get massacred once the rest of us are gone. Okay yeah, um, let's call it a draw."
"Not to mention the fact that he got killed trying to suppress a small peasant uprising that had taken up residence in a small keep. And by a random schnook with a crossbow no less, all because he decided to ride around with no armor on and yell at the archers up on top of the walls."
-JTCMuehlenkamp
Fly High.
"The first man to fly an airplane and the first man to step foot on the moon lived at the same time."
-CaptainWisconsin
"Orville Wright died in 1948, and Neil was born in 1930."
"I think the bigger thing when looking at these dates is Orville Wright witnessing the advancement of war with aircraft. Bombing (Conventional and Nuclear), Air-Raids, Parachute Drops."
-StickSauce
Children of God
"The Children of God cult was so controlling that they had rules for how many squares of toilet paper members could use."
"Otherwise, Mike the Chicken was a headless chicken that survived for about a year and a half after his accident."
-FinAdartse
Define Average.
Giphy"The average ww2 solder saw 10 days of combat a year. In Vietnam, it was 240 days."
-moxin84
You mean an average WW2 American soldier, right?"
"Because both the Soviets and the Germans definitely did not have enough reserves to rotate units so much. And they were in constant contact on a very long front."
-DefenestrationPraha
The Dutch Forget.
"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."
-Being_grateful
"Stinky Horse Blanket"
"There once was a Lakota warrior whose name meant something like "fights so hard he doesn't even take time to care for his own needs." His name in English due to translation errors was "Stinky Horse Blanket."
-DrJeckylMrHyde
The Allied powers...
"Not sure if this has already been shared, but here's one of my favorites:"
"In WW2 in an attempt to fool the allied powers, Germany built a small airbase and filled it with wooden mockups that were made to look like aircraft so they could make it seem that they had more aircraft then they really had. The British then rolled up and dropped a single wooden bomb on it soon after."
-Billytheninja1
Wiped out.
"Smallpox could've been completely eradicated, but two samples were kept. One for the US CDC and one in Russia. Then Russia made 2000 tons of smallpox bioweapon that disappeared after the Cold War."
TheCopenhagenCowboy
"They kept the samples in case we ever needed to make more vaccine, because there's always the chance that there's some tiny pocket of it out there that was overlooked through which it could come back."
SolDarkHunter
Tuts Away....
Giphy"King Tut wasn't some great King. He was severely physically deformed, and didn't reign that long."
"Ironically, he was so mediocre that his tomb was left alone by raiders. For this reason, his tomb was discovered later by historians untouched, making him the most famous Pharaoh of all time!"
_forum_mod
History is littered with cool information just waiting for us to dig it up!
"What is the biggest design flaw of the human body?"
Would Make A Lot Of People Less Cautious
"Unable to regenerate body parts."
"You lose an arm or a leg, you can't grow a new one."
"We can grow hair and nails forever, but not body parts."- drygnfyre
And Maybe The Whole Childbirth Process While We're At It...
"The size of the average baby head vs the size of the average vagina."- Ruggiard
"The Obstetric Dilemma."
"Basically, the human body isn't built for easy birth."- strykazoid
Season 3 Baby GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyIt Isn't Terribly Practical If You Think About It...
"IMO the whole 'we put food into the only air hole we have and can choke and die if we aren’t careful' thing is a pretty big miss."- el_rico_pavo_real
"Throat has a built in flaw - we breath n swallow food through the same area."- coolguy1793B
A More Direct Route Would Be Helpful
"I like the example of the recurrent laryngeal nerve."
"It runs from the brain to the larynx."
"However, to get there it goes from the brain, down the neck, into the chest, around the aorta and then back up the chest, up the neck and then connects to the larynx."
"That's a massive detour."
"It also means a blow to the chest can damage your ability to talk."- The_Thunder_Child
GiphyNever Underestimate The Damage Teeth Can Do
"The fact that I sometimes accidentally eat the inside of my mouth."- -Grey_Area-·
He Does Have A Point
"'Nostalgia is the greatest human weakness. Second only to the neck'... -Dwight Schrute
In Plain Sight...
"In our eyes, the blood vessels supplying our photoreceptors are in front of them and therefore in the way of the incoming light."
"Probably not the biggest and there are some good justifications for it being set up this way."
"But it still must be such a pain for the brain constantly having to edit these out when forming our visual experience."- oliwoggle
Loop Eyes GIF by Doze StudioGiphyMaybe Just Every Illness And Ailment?
"A stroke."
"My aunt had one when she was 31 and the healthiest person in the world."
"Ran an aerobics class at the Y, just perfect perfect health."
"Went to Pizza Hut with her the night before, next day, massive stroke, almost died, critical surgery, twenty years later she still has trouble speaking."
"It sucks."
"There is no reason that should’ve happened."
"Perfectly healthy person damaged for the rest of her life."
"She’s still amazing and lovely and my favorite person but damn is that annoying."- Jibber_Fight
"You can kinda just die at any moment from a brain aneurysm, even if you're perfectly healthy."- mcsteve87
All Our Bones Could Be Stronger...
"For upright walking creatures, why is our head so (relatively) delicate?"
"Trip a single time and you're blinded, have brain damage, bit off your tongue, or lost teeth."- kmn493
Episode 15 Pain GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyThey Arguably Also Weren't Built For Stairs...
"Our knees for sure."
"They just weren't built to last past 40 years."- TopShelfCrazy
A Couple More On/Off Switches Would Be Helpful As Well...
"That we cannot delete or sort unwanted/not needed info and memories from our brains."- PickAName616
As the saying goes, "nobody's perfect."
Or rather, "no BODY is perfect."
Otherwise, we'd all stop complaining about aching limbs or worrying about choking or other injuries.
Redditor H5N1BirdFlu wanted to discuss the moments in life that left us haunted and shook, so they asked:
"What is the creepiest or most unexplained event that you have ever experienced?"
I've seen so much creepiness I wouldn't know where to begin.
Deal
Walter White Wink GIF by Breaking BadGiphy"One car from one direction, and another car from the other direction stopped in front of my house. Both drivers got out and one gave the other a briefcase. Now that I am older I am guessing it was some kind of drug deal or something but at the time I found it very weird."
yapastaocho
'The Entertainer'
"We had a little copper music box that would start playing on its own. It was a man sitting at a player-piano and it would play 'The Entertainer' song. Now, I know that music boxes and such can spring (for lack of a better word) forward and play a few notes, but this thing would act like someone had wound it up and would play for a minute or two completely at random."
MercuryCrest
He?
"Me and and someone I used to know in high school way back when met to catch up. We were talking about our views on religion at some park. When we were walking back to our cars some guy said he had overheard us. We interacted a little and then went to our cars. I told her how awkward I felt knowing he overheard everything. She looked at me and said, 'He?'”
"After some comparing notes we realized we’d seen and heard entirely different people. She’d seen an elderly woman. I’d seen a middle aged man. Only problem is we only talked to the one person."
AccomplishedAuthor53
Overnight
"I usually go hiking and stay in the forest overnight, sleeping in a bivy and sometimes under a tarp. Now it's important to say I'm based in Europe. So no wild animals to be afraid of because usually they just boot it as soon as they notice you."
"So one winter night I'm sleeping under my tarp which connects to the ground on one side. It's in an area where there were fierce battles in the forrest on the border between Germany and Belgium in WWII."
"I hear something walking in the leaves, which is normal. There are always deer and ferral pigs on and about. But this time it comes closer and closer until I hear it right on the other side of my tarp and it starts growling. Its a noise I gad never heard and for a moment I was frozen trying to figure out what it might be and what to do."
"But I just decided to yell back and that did the trick. The animal walked a few steps and then turned back to growl once more before finally retreating."
"Let's put it this way, I didn't sleep for a while after that. I looked up the noise and think it was a badger."
Forest_Walkin
Devoured
Episode 4 Abc GIF by The BachelorGiphy"My family used to raise cattle. One morning I came out to check on them and I found one of the heifers had been more or less completely devoured."
"This same cow was perfectly fine the day before. There was nothing left but some hide, bones, and intestines. Thing is none of the predators that are in my area would be able to kill and eat an entire cow within the course of one night. Much less leave so little behind."
Aussieshepman
Poor cows. They live a rough life.
The Night Before
Get Out Omg GIF by Get Out MovieGiphy"When I was a kid, we lived in a kinda rural area. One night we came home late from an Uncle's house and there was a car parked up the road from our house with the headlights on."
"My mom suggested to my dad that we go see if they need help, he said no, so we went inside. Next morning police knocked on the door, a cyclist had spotted a body in the ditch exactly where the car was parked the night before."
Tpeest
Documents
"I have had a strange thing happen recently. I was waiting for my tax documents to come in so I could do my taxes. I had three documents that I put on my bedside table until I had the time."
"I decided to do it the other day and I couldn't find one of them. I tore the house apart, quizzed my husband (who swore he never touched it), checked the garbage, etc. I had resigned myself to the fact I would have to request another one, when it arrived in the mail."
"It was the same one, exact same information. I was really confused but grateful. I checked into it, it was not sent twice as far as the office could tell me."
"I don't know what to think. I KNOW I had that document because I had done some calculations with it. It's been itching at me like crazy."
monitormonkey
About 30 Feet
"A few months ago I was sitting in my living room on the couch, watching tv with a family member late at night. We have a high ceiling with a couple of rectangular windows at the very top of the wall just under where it meets the ceiling. The windows are so high (about 30 feet) we really only have them for natural lighting."
"So on the night in question, a green laser beam suddenly shown down through one of the windows, seemingly scanned the entire living room before stopping and pointing the beam right next to my family member for about 10 seconds and then disappearing entirely. It had to be either a drone or from some sort of flying aircraft. I live in a relatively secluded place which made the situation all the more unsettling."
0friday
Find Her
"Pretty sure I witnessed a kidnapping once and it still lives rent free in my head (the woman lost her slipper when she was trying to get away and i took a picture of it that i still have for some reason). I did indeed report it to police right after I saw it occur but they were pretty blasé about it and I never ended up being able to determine what they did to investigate."
ergaster8213
From Behind
the exorcist shadow GIFGiphy"I was in Jr High and had really long hair. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and almost tripped on a shoe on the floor. I bent down to move it and it felt like someone grabbed my entire pony tail and yanked it. I also could not sleep facing the wall for the longest time because it always felt like someone or something was right there behind me."
cheeseburgerphone182
Never face the wall. Life lesson.
These were some harrowing experiences, and we're glad these Redditors made it out to tell the story.
Do you have any similar experiences? Let us know in the comments below.