History is one of the most fascinating topics to delve deep into. Unfortunately, most people only remember history as the less-exciting reading class from school where they were forced to remember a lot of uninteresting facts about a lot of uninteresting people. Fortunately, once you move past American history (BURN!), you'll find the world is filled with more captivating tales of people and nature than we could imagine.
Reddit user, u/UncreativePotato143, wanted to hear something unheard of when they asked:
What's a fun history fact that not many people know?
A Polite Way To Go
Marie Antoinette's last words were "I'm sorry". She accidentally stepped on the foot of the executioner before she was beheaded.
Actual words were: "Pardon moi, monsieur."
To correct your correction, she's quoted as saying "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès!" ("Forgive me, sir, I did not do it on purpose.")
I bet that executioner felt like a bit of an a--hole after that.
That's One Way To Intimidate Your Enemies
The fact that the celts would run into battle wearing nothing while yielding swords and shields.
I like to imagine the other army just giving a heroic speech about bravery and honor and run into the battlefield just to see a bunch of overgrown Vikings just charging at them bare as the day they were born 😂
An Inside Look At A 15-Year Old Young Woman
A few pages of Anne Frank's diary is censored in most copies. The reason is that those certain pages contain Anne's thoughts on sex and body exploration which is pretty explicit. There are uncensored versions that are pretty easy to get.
Earn The Respect Of Your Enemies
Alexander the Great (AtG) was was truly surprised when he fought King Porus of India. Porus' war strategy and fighting techniques truly impressed AtG. While Porus lost to AtG in their battle, he was allowed to live with honor. Not only this, AtG, allowed Porus to remain the King of his kingdom however the tax would be paid to the Macedonian empire.
The Cutest Onslaught Of All Time
Once upon a time, the famous conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte was attacked by…bunnies. The emperor had requested that a rabbit hunt be arranged for himself and his men. His chief of staff set it up and had men round up reportedly 3,000 rabbits for the occasion.
When the rabbits were released from their cages, the hunt was ready to go. At least that was the plan! But the bunnies charged toward Bonaparte and his men in a viscous and unstoppable onslaught. And we were taught that Waterloo was the conqueror's greatest defeat
*adjusting tie awkwardly moment
Hitler's moustache used to be a lot bigger, but he was encouraged by his Sister in law to cut it shorter.
His sister stated that 'as with many things, he took it too far'.
Greet The Morning Sun
In ancient Syria, there was a local custom in which the people would hail the sun as it rose every morning. A Roman legion, the III Gallica, picked up the custom while stationed there for a while. In 69 CE, during a series of civil wars known as the Year of the Four Emperors, Titus Flavius Vespasian declared himself emperor and marched on Rome. The Legion III Gallica was one of the legions which rose to support him. The legions of the reigning emperor, Vitellius, met Vespasian's legions at the city of Bedriacum in northern Italy. The armies fought all through the night. In the morning, as the sun rose at dawn, the soldiers of the Legion III Gallica turned and faced east and began to cheer at the rising sun.
Vitellius' forces, not knowing of this Syrian custom, assumed that Vespasian's troops were greeting reinforcements arriving from the east. This caused a collapse of morale among Vitellius' forces, which lost them the battle. It's possible that Vespasian's army would have won the battle anyway, but in the event, it was the III Gallica hailing the sun which decided the battle and the war. The armies of Vitellius disintegrated, Vespasian's armies captured Rome, Vitellius was killed and Vespasian reigned as emperor for the next 10 years.
Punish Nature
Xerxes had the sea whipped when a storm destroyed the construction of a bridge
Coincidence? I. Think...
Not sure if this qualifies as a fun fact but anyway, here goes...
Edgar Allen Poe wrote a novel in 1838 in which 4 shipwrecked survivors, at the point of starvation, choose to resort to cannibalism. So they kill the young cabin boy, Richard Parker, and eat him.
In 1884, a ship called the Mignonette sank. 4 crewmembers survived. At the point of starvation, they killed and ate the youngest of them: Richard Parker.
No One Likes A Sunny Day
The coliseum in Ancient Rome had an extendable shade awning with piped in water to mist attendees on hot days.
Anything To Win The Wars
During world war I both French and German armies had bicycle units.
The Swiss still have bicycle units if memory serves me correctly. The Belgians during the Great War used dogs to pull their machine guns.
How Else Do You Win A War?
The Blitzkrieg, which was used by the Germans in WW2 to take over most of Europe was fueled by crystal meth.
They did this so the soldiers would stay awake for longer periods, but soon it led to an addiction and the soldiers constantly needed it and eventually it led to withdrawal and fatigue.
Wouldn't You Want To Go To One Of These?
In Ancient Greece, there were a lot of gods. One of the gods was Dionysus, the god of wine and theater and fertility.
The Ancient Greeks had festivals dedicated to Dionysus where they would get wasted and wave around model penises.
Upholding The Family Legacy
Charles Darwin's pet turtle recently died in [2006].
Survival of the fittest really did work out, huh?
Still Not A Great War
The Crusades were purely defensive wars- the Middle East and North Africa, were, in fact, Christian lands before Islam came along. Plus, Christianity also predated Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa by 6 centuries.
Wonder What The IRS Had To Say?
Buzz Aldrin - the second person to set foot on the moon - claimed $ 33.31 in travel expenses: Houston > Cape Kennedy > the Moon > Pacific Ocean > Hawaii > Houston.
Ah...Um...Sure. Go For It.
The first fleet to Australia, landing on Jan 26th, consisted of ships divided into male and female convicts. After having been at sea for several months and disembarking onto the beach, there was a good deal of sexual tension, such that it was feared a riot would erupt. In order to prevent this, the Commander gave orders to allow the male and female prisoners to mix- as documented in the ship logs. Thus, the first official act on Australian soil and celebrated annually on Australia Day, was a huge orgy.
Rain, Rain, Go Away
252 million years ago, it rained for 2 million years straight.
Hell yeah! I was just learning about this. It's thought to have jump-started dinosaur evolution by prompting the spread of big f-cking plants. It's called the Carnian Pluvial Event, but it really needs a better and more powerful name, like "DOWNPOUR EARTH!" It has also been called the far less-enthusiastic name "Carnian Humid Episode".
Geologists love to make exciting things sound f-cking boring. Physicists get rad names like black holes and big bangs and supernovas and quarks and sh-t. Geologists are like "This is the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event". Then another cooler scientist says, "Oh neat. Should we give it a cool name?" Then the geologist goes, "Let's just call it the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event." And he goes back to silently poking at the dirt.
Jack, Your Boat Is Boring
Most of us are familiar with the tragic story of Titanic. Fewer know of Titanic's older and goofier sister, Olympic, which not only had a long and successful career, but spent an awful lot of it smashing into sh-t!
On leaving Southampton for her fifth Atlantic voyage, Olympic sailed just a wee bit close to Royal Navy warship HMS Hawke, scraping off the warship's bow ram. Hawke was severely damaged, while Olympic shrugged it off (despite being holed in two places) and sailed back to Belfast under her own steam for repairs. These repairs delayed Titanic's launch for several weeks.
During the First World War, Olympic was temporarily repurposed as a troop transport. But she had a thirst for blood! During one crossing, after sighting a German U-boat attempting to torpedo her, the liner threw a sharp turn and ran the f-cker over. The U-boat U103 was punctured by Olympic's propeller and sunk. Olympic suffered a few dents and a twisted prow, but was not breached. Olympic earned the distinction of being the only merchant ship to sink an enemy vessel during the war.
Fast forward to New York harbour 1924, and Olympic collided with another ship which dared cross her path. The Italian ship Fort St George suffered extensive damage and Olympic, which appeared unscathed at the time, later had to have her entire stern frame replaced.
(Incidentally, during this refit a mysterious dent was found below Olympic's waterline. This was confirmed to be from a torpedo that had hit the liner during the war a decade earlier and not detonated. Olympic didn't bat an eyelid.)
Nine years later Olympic joined the long list of ships that had collided with the Nantucket lightship. Not content with just this however, Olympic decided to better the rest of them, hitting the lightship amidships and cutting it clean in two. Seven of the lightship's crew perished.
Eventually the only thing that could stop this maniac of the ocean wasn't nature, or the laws of physics, but the economy. Transatlantic travel took a major hit during the Depression, and Olympic was scrapped when she could no longer compete with more modern and efficient liners. She had been terrorising the high seas for 24 years.
It's a shame really that of Titanic and her two sisters, most of us are familiar only with the less interesting one!
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