fact
During the Great Depression, banker Mark Welch Munroe convinced struggling families in Quincy, Florida to buy Coca-Cola shares that traded at 19 dollars. Later, the town became the single richest town per capita in the US with at least 67 millionaires.
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Environmental activist Julia “Butterfly” Hill lived in a 1500 year old California redwood tree (known as Luna) 180 feet (55 mm) off the ground for 738 days in order to prevent it from being chopped down by Pacific Lumber Company. She successfully saved the tree.
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People with dementia think that stuff like a black doormat isn’t a doormat, but a deep hole in the floor. Due to these visual perception problems, people with dementia avoid stepping the doormat, and this is sometimes used to keep them from leaving their care facilites.
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I love history.
It’s a lifelong soap opera because history is actually riddled with drama and crazy.
But most of it is hidden from us.
Why is that? Don’t educators realize that the more salacious it is the more everyone will pay attention?
I’ve learned things about the past out of school that would’ve gotten me an “A” in class, because my attention would’ve been peaked.
An unknown Redditor wanted to get into some scandalous information we missed out on when we were younger.
“Knowledgable Redditors, what are some R-rated facts about history that usually get left out of the average middle/high school classroom?”
Let’s get to learning.
“JFK was the first US President to be circumcised. He was 22 at the time.” ~ otis_the_drunk
“Ancient Romans drew penises on everything.” ~ CorporalThornberry
“They also wore necklaces with winged cocks on them.”
“It was replicated recently by a jewelry company and turned out to look like a cock-cross so the Catholics all said nay nay and they cancelled it.”
“Source: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/stargazing/article4447208.html“. ~ rezlang
“Powdered wigs became popular because they hid the baldness caused by syphilis, which was rampant in Europe during the 17th century.” ~ Reddit
“Another crazy fact about these wigs, right before the French revolution.”
“The wigs the French aristocracy wore at the time were massive. To keep them from losing shape, they starched them.”
“Meaning they used edible grain to create wig starching powder. While the population couldn’t afford to eat because a loaf of bread became more expensive than a week’s wage.”
“It’s no wonder the revolution started and ended the way it did. French aristocracy was literally using foodstuffs to make their giant wigs stay up.” ~ Mister_Dink
“History is really, really kinky.”
“Some ancient temples and holy places, especially in India, depict acts that range from orgies to bestiality.”
“Temple prostitute is one of the oldest professions and were widely accepted in early history, showing up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which coincidentally also featured bestiality.” ~ xenomorphs_at_disney
“Considering the number of ancient cultures that had ‘God have sex with animal’ as a prominent story it amazes me that people don’t realize how prevalent it has been throughout history.”
“I mean, there’s a whole story about Loki turning into a horse and doing it and birthing a superhorse, not to mention all the Roman/Greek deities gettin’ crazy.” ~ losian
“The diary of Anne Frank also included detailed accounts of her exploring her sexuality/ masturbation which was quickly edited out before it was published.” ~ bttrflyr
“That was brave when she was living in a small space with several other people. I mean the masturbation is one thing, but writing about it in front of people with little to do? Damn.” ~ Merle8888
“Infanticide happened through ‘almost’ every culture, on every continent, throughout history, to a significant degree.”
“Sometimes gender was a factor, sometimes it wasn’t. Ancient Egypt was the exception, but unwanted kids usually became slaves instead.” ~ TimelyKaleidoscope
“The biggest reason in Christian Europe was birth defects.”
“A daughter could still pull her weight on the farm but a child with spina bifida or Downs or missing limbs couldn’t.”
“This was even worse than it seems because the rural poor, who made up over 90% of the population, were so inbred that up to one in eight children were born with an identifiable defect.” ~ Reddit
“Pretty much. And there were myths that grew around these things to justify them, such as human beings being switched with troll babies, identifiable because the switched baby seemed sick and wasn’t thriving.”
“They were supposed to basically torture it until their ‘real’ child was returned.” ~ TimelyKaleidoscope
“The were able to follow the trail of Lewis and Clark by finding mercury. Which they were taking to combat syphilis.” ~ Klaxon722
“York, Clark’s slave who accompanied the Corps, had a lot of sex because of his curiosity as a Black man.”
“Few Whites were ever in the area at all and no Black person ever made it that far up. It was mostly French trappers and Russian or Spanish explorers.” ~ AudibleNod
“Twins were a scourge and were left in the wilderness. What a burden to a family.”
“I think we don’t appreciate how besieged by death and illness everyone was. A family could have 20 children and see 5 raised to adulthood.”
They weren’t inured to it or callus, they loved and grieved their children the same as we do.”
“They had God, family, friends, and untreated depression, alcohol, and suicide to get through it. And a lot of hard work.”
“So killing an infant they can’t care for was a mercy for the children they already had.”
“If you have 5 mouths and money barely to feed the 7 of you, it is cruel to all of you to bring in another 1 or 2 and make the lot of you starve.”
“Even more so if that child is born with a mark on them that shows it won’t make it past a few months or a few years.”
“Why starve 2 children when you can kill only 1? They didn’t do this cheerfully.”
“They did it to survive.” ~NotMyHersheyBar
“Not R rated on its own, but have you ever considered how smelly history would be?”
“Imagine the signing of the declaration of independence.”
“A reportedly hot day, during a time when people didn’t bath often, people wore a bunch of layers, and you have a bunch of dudes packed into a room for hours.”
“The R rated part, all of these people had sex. And it would smell so bad.” ~ jpterodactyl
“The Aztecs would wear someone’s skin for days until it peeled off as a ritual sacrifice to the maize goddess during the new harvest season, the skin was supposed to represent the husk of corn and how it would dry up and peel off the cob, also around this time they would have priests wear penis hats to represent fertility.” ~ lizardlord217
“Let’s be honest, it’s the Aztecs we’re taking about.”
“A literal society based around human sacrifice, whose founding myth involves the revelation that the gods wanted human sacrifices “‘ike tortillas fresh off the griddle.’ (I.e., early and often).”
“What do you think the answer is?” ~ DowncastAcorn
Now that is fun.
We really should scatter the fun with the just OK parts of history.
Scandal is the bedrock of every nation.
Just let the freak flag fly!
A lot of us enjoy discovering unusual and wild facts, but honestly, sometimes the facts we discover are so out there, we struggle to believe they are true.
Some of us even become angry when we discover something is true, because it’s so hard to believe!
“What’s a terrifying fact that keeps you up at night?”
“Here is the etymology of the days of the week in English:”
“Sun’s Day”
“Moon’s Day”
“Tir (Tew)’s day”
“Odin (Wodin)’s day”
“Thor’s Day”
“Freya’s Day”
“Saturn’s Day”
“Two celestial bodies, four Norse gods, and suddenly one asshole from the Roman pantheon for no godd**ned reason. What the f**k is Saturn doing there?” – IronOhki
“I like how they’re called in Serbian:”
“• Utorak (Tuesday) – Taken from old Slavic and means ‘second.’”
“• Sreda (Wednesday) – Means ‘middle.’”
“• Četvrtak (Thursday) – Means ‘fourth.’”
“• Petak (Friday) – Means ‘fifth.’”
“• Subota (Saturday) – Derived from the word ‘sabbath.’”
“• Nedelja (Sunday) – Means ‘not to work,’ or ‘the day when you don’t work.’”
“• Ponedeljak (Monday) – Literally means ‘after Nedelja,’ or ‘the day after the day when you don’t work,’ because laziness is on a whole other level here apparently.’” – TheCosmicSound
“There are more privately owned tigers in Texas than there are wild tigers on the rest of the planet combined.” – j_flameIV
“Crocodiles can climb trees.” – MoravianPrince
“A flock of crows is called a murder. But a flock of ravens is called an unkindness or a conspiracy. Who even comes up with this s**t?” – thweet_jethuth
“Pretty much anything to do with naked mole rats. They are neither related to moles nor rats, they can use their teeth like chopsticks, they have the social hierarchy of bees, and oh yeah, THEY ARE COLD-BLOODED.” – JustAProxyForLurking
“In the cat family, cats can either roar or purr, but can’t do both. It’s to do with the structure of the throat.”
“Cheetahs can’t roar, but I hope you find some solace in the thought of them purring happily.”
“Incidentally, cheetahs are different from other big cats in another way too – they can’t retract their claws completely.” – Lenaandcats
“English Bulldogs can’t mate naturally. The males are literally physically incapable of mounting the females, so they either have to be helped to do so, or the females are artificially inseminated.”
“The puppies are always delivered via cesarean section since their skulls would not fit through the birth canal. They will then live their entire lives with compromised breathing.”
“But you know, they’re so cute! With their little squished in faces and their adorable snorting!”
“Sorry… I get angry when it comes to purposefully breeding broken animals.” – kabjl
“Persian cats often have breathing problems and blocked tear ducts.”
“Breed two polydactyl (double pawed) cats together and you get kittens with eyes set very far apart and crooked front legs.”
“Intentionally breeding animals to create features people consider cute or fascinating at the expense of the animal’s health should be treated as animal cruelty.” – useatyourownrisk
“Bananas are berries but strawberries are not berries.” – NikiF**kingLauda
“Raspberries, blackberries, and boysenberries are also not berries.”
“Wanna know what else is a berry? A watermelon.” – Grayseff
“Cannoli is already in plural form. The singular form is Cannolo.” – JimDumb22
“Coolth is an actual word and it’s the opposite of warmth. I love using it but my girlfriend fucking hates it.” – mackenzicles
“The terms ‘hardwood’ and ‘softwood’ have nothing to do with the actual hardness of the wood, but what kind of seeds the tree produces.” – Penguin_Out_Of_A_Zoo
“Inflammable and flammable mean the same thing. ‘Flammable’ is not considered a scientifically acceptable term for things-that-catch-fire-easily. ‘Inflammable’ is the proper term and comes from the word inflame.”
“But flammable caught on because inflammable sounds too much like resistant-to-being-caught-on-fire, which is potentially quite a dangerous misunderstanding.” – Guinefort1
“The word ‘Helicopter’ is not made up of the words ‘Heli’ and ‘Copter,’ but rather ‘Helico’ and ‘Pter,’ which are Greek for ‘Spiral’ and ‘Wing.’” – Zaptagious
“That ‘unlockable’ means both: Able to be unlocked AND Unable to be locked.”
“My 11-year-old pointed this out, and I had nothing for her other than a blank stare and then thinking, ‘Well, s**t. Good job.’” – jenfers
“The fact that this sentence is grammatically correct: ‘All the faith he had had had had no effect.’” – WoodyPoleSmoker
“Get ready:”
“‘James, where John had had ‘had,’ had had ‘had had;’ ‘had had’ had had a better effect on the teacher.’ is correct.” – halatian6
“All crisps (chips for any Americans) in the UK go out of date on a Saturday. It annoys me because a smug friend pointed it out and i have been unsuccessful in proving him wrong.” – Rossco1874
“I had to Google this and found this from Walkers…”
“In the manufacturing sites, we work on production weeks which start on a Sunday. All product produced in that week will have the same Best Before date. As the week ends on Saturday, the Best Before date will always end on a Saturday.” – IsItMeYourLooking49
“If you mix water and sawdust and freeze it, the resulting ‘ice’ melts extremely slowly. like, ‘weeks at room temperature’ slowly.” – btaylos
“The fact that in an electric circuit, even though the electric current is electrons moving from negative pole to positive pole, the definition of a current flow is that it moves from positive to negative.”
“And similar misses in definitions in physics/science that was just decided to stay because changing definitions would be confusing at first.” – Versalis_A
Though some of the Redditors struggled to believe these facts were true, there was no arguing these facts were fascinating.
It’s an amazing reminder there is something new and fun to learn lurking around every corner.
Boris Mikhailov, captain of the USSR hockey team, was offered a $1 million contract to leave Russia in 1980 after the Miracle on Ice. However, he declined as the KGB was standing next to him when the offer was made.
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In Milwaukee, it is a Christmas tradition to eat raw ground beef and onions on rye bread.
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The vast majority of “Push to Walk” buttons at intersections and “Close Door” buttons in elevators are disabled and only exist to give the illusion of control. In NYC, less than 10% of walk buttons are still even connected to the power grid.
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Life ends. All life does.
And entire new biological processes take place in death that we would never know about—or want to.
Except, that is, if you DO know about it. If you’ve been gifted the awareness of what exactly happens to a human body while it decomposes, you would be the bearer of a morbid fact..
And as a matter of fact, morbid facts are a lot bigger of a demographic of facts than you would really think they are.
“What morbid fact do you know?”
Here were some of those answers.
“If bodies are kept in coffins that are sealed tight enough, such as the in wall type of memorial, sometimes enough gases can build up that the body basically explodes and can spill out onto the ground.”-Mangobunny98
“If you electrocute someone while they are submerged in water, it won’t leave burn marks.”-R3dShield
“I think this is pretty well known on Reddit, but it’s a common misconception that your hair and fingernails continue to grow after you die.”
“What actually happens is your skin dries out, and recedes, which gives the appearance of nails/hair being longer than they were before death”-Antitheistic10
“In Formula 1, safety belts were not mandatory until 1972.”
“Before then, drivers believed it better to be ejected in a crash, and either die instantly from a broken neck or suffer many broken bones.”
“The alternative, they thought, was to be trapped and essentially cremated alive should the gas tanks ignite.”-[username deleted]
“A professor at my lecture today said that deer will lay on decaying corpses because they produce heat and the deer like that. Basically deer treat corpses as their personal sauna.”-4ensicmess
“An adult human body impacting on concrete does not sound organic or ‘wet’ at all, it reminded me more of a car accident than anything else.”
“Source: Last week someone committed suicide by jumping off of the building I live in, I heard the impact and saw the body when I walked out onto my terrace to see what was going on.”
“Second morbid fact, from the same source: The human brain looks far more white & pink when it gets ejected from the skull, I always thought a ‘live’ brain would be red from the blood in it but I was wrong.”-Octosphere
“In the middle ages, you could be boiled in a pot of lead for certain crimes. What crimes they were I have forgotten, but it certainly was a thing.”-necrophiliaisillegal
“Before you die, your last words could be, ‘I don’t feel so good.’”
“I was a paramedic for 15 years and heard dozens of people’s final words. The phrase I heard most often, possibly from half to three quarters of them, were some form of ‘I don’t feel so good.’”
“I’ve also heard, ‘Wait, somethings wrong,’ ‘Somethings happening,’ ‘I don’t feel right.’ ‘Wait, somethings wrong,’ ‘It’s happening,’ and ‘Oh no, Oh no.’”
“People feel the blood leaving their brain I think. Must be like a rush.”-Forbidden_Donut503
“The whole “‘f your erection last more than 4 hours, receive immediate medical’ or whatever is the reason why the Brazilian wandering spider (located in the Amazon) is so dangerous.”
“Its bite is supposed to make you have an erection for a long time and it’s pretty hard to find medical services when you’re in the Amazon.”
“What happens with boners is that blood fills up the penis and mostly stays there until the boner is gone. If it stays longer than 4 hours, the blood is deprived of oxygen.”
“It can turn into a jelly like substance with lots of clotting, so leaving it untreated could clog you up as the blood flows back. By the time you get to a doctor, they have two options.”
“One is get a 60ml syringe w/ a needle and suck out the blood (that’s the consistency of toothpaste), while also flushing it with salt water (also w/ syringe and needle) when those clots stop the needle.”
“The second option, which is usually saved for last, is to vertically insert a small blade inside the meatus/slit in the head and sharply twist it by 90°. Then just let it drain.”-marcy1010
“After the Pulse night club shooting, when the cops were investigating, you’d think it was pretty quiet in there.”
“It was actually a cacophony of ringing cell phones. So many friends and loved ones calling people they knew were there, hoping they’ll answer the phone and say they’re ok…”-Veritas3333
“There’s something called ‘Anaesthesia Awareness’ where of certain people go into surgery and they don’t give you enough anaesthesia, it will look like you’re asleep (eyes closed, not talking or moving), but the patient can still hear and feel everything that’s happening.”
“But here’s the scary part. You’re unable to move, speak or open your eyes. Unless they have a monitor to show your brain activity, you’re stuck with having to endure the pain.”-EveryNameIsStolen
“On Mt. Everest, you have the rainbow valley, the last zone to climb to reach the peak.”
“Which sounds cute but it’s really the colorful jackets of dead climbers who are frozen in time against the white harsh snow.”
“Also, when close to the peak, the oxygen levels are so low that the body is starting to die. You only have a few minutes to reach the top.”-tarantulaboi
“Also, not sure of how much of a standard practice it is, but if you donate body to a school they will possibly ship your body elsewhere.”
“I know I saw a comment about how you need to be nearby the place you donate to because they dont want to ship you to them, but they may ship you elsewhere.”
“I know at least at the local college by me, they get all their cadavers from Texas (in Illinois, and we ship ours to them) so that theres less of a chance that a student may know the person.”
“And they also cover the faces unless doing any sort of head/face things (again at least the one by me does)”-future_nurse19
“Mausoleums have not only a ventilation system to prevent smells, but the crypt slots are angled towards the back and have a drainage system for uh…liquids coming out of the caskets.”
“Airtight caskets are a problem in mausoleums because the body liquifies inside and can build up so much gas that the lid can almost explode off of the caskets, sometimes even breaking the stone slab at the entrance of the slot.”
“Can you imagine walking through a mausoleum and suddenly the slab to a slot just shatters from the inside?”-crescentcactus
Despite being bone-chilling and morbid in life, these facts could actually be useful for you some day—but hopefully for most of us, that day is very, very far away.
We all love a good fun fact.
They expand our mind just a tiny, gentle amount. Sometimes they bring a smirk to our face. And other times they’re reliable as hell during an awkward ice breaker.
So it’s not a bad idea to keep a few in your back pocket for when, say, you’ve just started a job or a first date is going horribly.
“What are some ‘why the fu** do you know that information’ facts?”
“Squid can literally give themselves brain damage by eating something too big. Their brain is a donut shape and the esophagus runs through it.” — orbitofnormal
“Crayfish (or lobster?) have a sort of open channel like an ear that helps them balance. A few grains of sand sit in it and because gravity is pulling the grains down they always know which way is up.”
“However if you put magnetic metal shavings into the holes and hold a large strong magnet above them they’ll start to swim upside down.” — XamiaArc
“only 10% of a whales sperm enters the mate, 90% goes into the ocean. meaning that drinking ocean water is drinking a percentage of whale cum” — SugonmaBalls
“Leave a human body soaking in a solution of lye and water for several months and it will dissolve into liquid and soft bone dust which can be washed down a drain, leaving no evidence behind.”
“If you need to speed the process up you can heat the water up to just short of boiling and dissolve the body in ~6 hours.” — hananobira
“Some foot fetishes occur because the part of the brain that controls feeling in the feet is positioned right next to the part that produces libido, and sometimes the wires within the brain become crossed.” — S_is_for_Smeagol
“When someone dies in an area where insects can get to them, their face often decomposes first. There’s lots of nice holes on and next to the face that are great for egg-laying.”
“Then, the bugs eat your face and buzz off.” — tapiocatsar
“That Rolling Rock beer almost went bankrupt in the 1990’s. As a last ditch effort they hired a new marketing exec to turn their fortunes around.”
“In their big meeting with all the board members waiting in anticipation for his big reveal he told them to just raise the price. They were ready to fire him on the spot, because they couldn’t sell any at the cheapo price.”
“Then he told them why – their price point was less than Budweiser at the time and that was the standard by which people judged the quality of a beer. He reasoned that if they increased the price to the next tier above Bud and did nothing else, people would believe it was a better beer, even though it was the same as it ever was.”
“It turned into their ad campaign and they thumbed their noses at all the yuppies who drank it by the case in college in the 70’s and 80’s who started buying it again because it was now a ‘better’ beer. It was wildly successful and saved the company.” — Finklemaier
“Andrei Chikatilo, a serial killer from the USSR who was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering at least 52 women and children, was arrested and questioned by police six years before his official apprehension date.”
“This was because police took a blood sample from him that was different than the blood group of the semen found at the scene of one of his crimes. However, obviously, Chikatilo was guilty.”
“He had a rare genetic condition in which the blood groups of his blood & saliva and his semen are different, which is how he was questioned and released.” — sylveonstarr
“John Kellogg (inventer of corn flakes) was a huge advocate for circumcision because he believed it would prevent us from masturbating.”
“Also he tried normalizing putting acid on the clitoris for the same reason” — TrystenConn
“Valery Khodemchuk was an engineer working the Night Shift at Chernobyl’s Reactor 4 the night it exploded.”
“He was the very first person killed in the accident, as he likely died instantly when his body was vaporized by the blast. His remains were never recovered, and the ruins now serve as his tomb.” — TheMadmanAndre
“Opicinus de Canistris, an Italian priest who lived during the 13th and 14th centuries, believed that parts of his body metaphysically represented regions of the world, and that if he felt pain in one area, then it could mean that disaster was about to fall on that region.”
“He also drew a metaphysical “world map” that was basically pictures of random people and animals stuck together instead of an actual map of the world.”
“He actually managed to get the Pope at the time on his side. It speaks volumes about the state of science in the Middle Ages that this blatant psychotic could promote his beliefs under the guise of serving Christianity.” — ugagradlady
“In Silence of the Lambs, when Hannibal Lector gives the infamous quote ‘I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti,’ it’s a reference that he’s off his meds.”
“Some antipsychotics have negative interactions with beans, red wine, and organ meats. It’s kind of an odd joke though, because Hannibal Lector is a diagnosed psychopath in the movie, and psychopathy isn’t treated with antipsychotics.” — [deleted]
Here’s hoping these facts aren’t too unnerving to dust off at a party or a team-builder.