fact
In 1966 a shrewd beachfront motel owner saw a loophole in Oregons terminology of public beach usage. He started fencing off the beach at his motel and wealthy people around the state with beachfront property quickly followed suit. It generated the largest public response in the states history.
The post In 1966 a shrewd beachfront motel… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
Families are full of all kinds of secrets and surprising moments, and it’s important that we keep them in the family.
But sometimes, in the anonymity of a Reddit thread, some of the truth comes out.
“What are some weird or interesting facts about your families?”
“I placed my newborn for adoption (open adoption, chose the family myself). A few years later my sister got pregnant and placed her newborn with the same family.”
“So the children are growing up as siblings and are cousins by blood. (This was over 20 years ago.)” – ihateknickknacks
“Not that unheard of but my husband likes to tell people about when he first met my family. He went with me to visit one side (my Mother’s family) for Thanksgiving and met many of my Uncles, Aunts, and cousins.”
“The next day, we were going to have Thanksgiving on my other side (my Father’s family). When we walked in the door that next day, he stopped and his eyes got really wide, and he loudly whispered, “These are the same people,’ and I went, ‘Yeah, I know… surprise!’”
“My mother’s brother married my father’s sister and my mother’s other sister married my father’s first cousin.”
“And then if that isn’t confusing enough, my Grandmother and Grandfather were first cousins when they got married. (legal as he was adopted as a teenager).”
“My Grandmother said she did this so she never had to change her last name and she was the only girl short enough for him. My Grandfather was only 5 ft 2 inches and my Grandmother was 5 ft. Both came from Canada. Out of their 8 children, including two sons, the tallest is one of my aunts at 5 ft. 4 in. Luckily my mother (5 ft) married my dad who was 6ft 2 inch so we at least have some height in our family.” – Tbjkbe
“We recently found out that I have at least 5 half-siblings because my parents decided it would be nice (and financially beneficial) for my dad to make some donations around the time I was born.” – BananaMantis
“My great grandfather got in a fight with his sister when he was 12, said ‘F**k this,’ asked for work on a boat as a cabin boy, got on a ship, and left England.”
“He never went back. We have no idea if that side of the family even knows he survived, but I kind of want to go to the English town and tell my distantly extended family, ‘So you know that little kid in your family history who just sort of disappeared? Well, he lived! Surprise!’”
“Another great grandfather stole a cannon from China (which my grandfather blew up accidentally with my dad nearby), then left his future descendants a letter, telling us, ‘If you still have this last name and go to this part of China, don’t mention your name. They might still be pretty p**sed off that I stole their cannon.’”
“A few generations back, a dude got kicked out of Norway for getting his maid and his sister pregnant. When he got to the US, he then befriended another guy from Scandinavia and stole his wife.”
“It’s funny because part of the family laughs about this, and part refuses to admit it ever happened even though we have proof it did.” – Vonozar
“My great grandmothers maiden name was Messerschmidt. rumor has it that a relative designed the Messerschmidt planes in Germany during the first world war. There’s no way to prove it though.”
“And on the other side of the family, My great-great grandfather’s name was James Potter.” – shroomie19
“My great uncle was in the car with JFK when he was assassinated.” – Sterling_-_Archer
“My grandfather was the first Black aerospace engineer in the United States.” – cycloneju51
“My great grandparents both worked for Thomas Edison, which is how they met. That great-grandmother is super bada**, too… she came to the States when she was 15 and didn’t speak English, just as the German Depression was getting bad.”
“She had to teach herself English and raise enough money to bring her starving family over from Germany to join her here. She lost all her savings in the US stock market crash and had to start all over, but she did it!”
“Okay, I talked to my mom and I was mistaken. Only my great-grandmother worked for him originally, and she met my great-grandfather while in NYC with Edison and his second wife.”
“She went out with a friend who was also German, who brought her out with a group of German friends, which is where she met my great-grandfather. After they were married, he too went to work for Edison, and that’s where I got the story mixed up. I’m sorry for the error!”
“Also, a commenter asked how they thought of him, since Edison was known as kind of a jerk. I copied my reply from another comment here:”
“So I asked my mom, and she said that her grandmother never felt he liked her very much. She was maid to him and his second wife toward the end of his life.”
“When she brought him meals or came in to tidy up, he wouldn’t speak to her and wouldn’t even make eye contact.”
“He was able to be up and walking around the grounds and conversing with others though, and he always wondered if it was because of her station, or because she was German.” – joey1115
“We only die in March. Dogs, grandparents, uncles, we all die in March.” – AnarchyBea
“I had an ancestor who lied about his age to join up with the Union Army in the American Civil War in 1861. He fought in most of its bloodiest battles: Antietam, Shiloh, and Gettysburg to name a few.”
“He survived all of those to come home to the family farm at the end of the war, where he promptly died of a fever he had picked up in camp.” – captainthomas
“My grandad was poisoning my nan’s tea with rat poison for ages. She was documenting it and told the police, they did a huge bust on him and arrested him in front of all their kids (inc. my mum).”
“In court, he admitted to it, he agreed to all the charges, he did the deed. Eventually, the judge, flummoxed, asked ‘… But why?’”
“And his answer was, ‘Because we agreed to it.’”
“Apparently, they had made an agreement to use rat poison to home-treat her deep vein thrombosis (this brand was basically a blood thinner so the rats couldn’t clot when they got injured, and they both distrust doctors). This woman is crazy and I fully believe my grandad’s side.”
“The case got thrown out of court.” – Howlingz
While some secrets are hard for us to accept, especially when they relate to our families, many of the truths in our families are what helped form our families into what they are, from the family tree itself to important involvement in history.
History is full of fascinating figures and stories.
Humans have been interesting, wild, strange, goofy, ridiculous, horrible, murderous, and pretty much any other thing you can name.
Time has eroded societies and built new ones, introduced technology and killed off hallmarks of the past.
When you specialize in history you become the keeper of this arsenal of facts. And even better, you become responsible for sharing them with others.
In a way, you become the shaper of how we, in the contemporary era, experience history.
“History Professionals of Reddit. What is that one history fact that you just love sharing with people?”
Here were some of those factoids.
“Daniel Steibelt, a top pianist in his own right, challenged his contemporary Beethoven to a musical improv duel.”
“Steibelt did believe he had a shot; he was no kid, and had already composed for Marie Antoinette and operatized a successful version of Romeo and Juliet.”
“He showed up to the improv and played one of his own works, for which he’d brought the sheet music.”
“Once it was his turn, Beethoven turned the sheet music upside down and beautifully f**ked the piece sideways and backwards, overturing Steibelt’s style all the while like a cat teasing a particularly boring mouse.”
“No one ever challenged Beethoven to a musical improv again, least of all Steibelt, who never again set foot in Vienna.”-Tmaffa
“The longest piano piece of any kind is Vexations by Erik Satie.”
“It consists of a 180-note composition which, on the composer’s orders, must be repeated 840 times so that the whole performance is 18 hours 40 minutes.”
“Its first reported public performance in September 1963, in the Pocket Theater, New York City, required a relay team of 10 pianists.”
“The New York Times critic fell asleep at 4 a.m. and the audience dwindled to 6 masochists. At the conclusion, one sado-masochist shouted ‘Encore!’”-Back2Bach
“Julius Caesar was once kidnapped by pirates, and when he found out how much they were ransoming him for, he was offended at how low the amount was and told them to raise it.”
“Meanwhile he spent his captivity annoying the sh*t out of his captors, holding poetry readings and generally being a pompous dick.”
“Oh, and he also joked that he’d eventually hunt them all down and crucify them. The ransom was paid, Caesar was released, then he hunted them down and crucified them.”-Tmaffa
“I like telling people about orphan trains. During the late 19th-early 20th century, Progressive reformers loaded ‘orphans’ onto trains, sending them to the countryside for what often amounted to indentured servitude.”
“Also, some of the kids that were targeted were not orphans, and the Protestant reformers may have intentionally targeted the children of intact Catholic and Jewish immigrant families to make sure they were converted to the right religion.”
“I’ve found that it’s not a very well known part of the Progressive Era.”-[username deleted]
“The Pentagon wasn’t built that way for any defense reason — in fact, it’s not even a regular pentagon.”
“It was designed to fit nicely into the empty field between five major roads, but then later there was some reason why they had to build it somewhere else, I think it was too close to some city or something.”
“Anyway they’d already paid someone to design this five-sided building so they just said f**k it, it’s a pentagon now.”-Tmaffa
“From the memoirs of a Bill Bellamy, a British WW2 tank troop commander: One of our favourite pursuits was to eavesdrop on other squadron wireless nets while we were resting. This could be very exciting and, on occasion, very amusing.”
“One splendid moment occurred when C squadron were out on a standing patrol and Michael Payne, a young and popular troop leader, was in a hedgerow with shelling taking place to his front.”
“Apparently the whole area was covered with cattle, who paid little attention to the lethal objects dropping around them and concentrated on the job in hand.”
“Suddenly over the air came the laconic voice of Mickey, ‘Gunner, you see that poor cow in front which has just been wounded? Put the poor devil out of its misery will you?’”
“He obviously imagined he was talking on his intercom and not broadcasting to the world, because he then remained on the air with his microphone switch pressed.”
“There was a moment of silence and then a rat-tat-tat of the Besa machine-gun. Then came Mickey’s agonised cry, ‘Not that one you bloody fool, the one on the left!’”
“We didn’t let him forget that for a long time.”-Tmaffa
“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 Sicily 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.”-CarbonSpectre
“I’m not a history professional but love talking about how the South Korean and US governments launched Operation Paul Bunyan.”
“And the US went to combat readiness DEFCON 3 (the US went to DEFCON 2 over the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Gulf War; the US last went to DEFCON 3 on 9/11) because of a single poplar tree that blocked the line of sight between a United Nations Command checkpoint and an observation post.”
“To be fair, this was also called the Korean Axe Murder Incident and had to do with the killing of two United States Army officers in the Joint Security Area (JSA) located in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).”
“The U.S. Army officers had been part of a work party cutting down a poplar tree in the JSA that partially blocked the view of United Nations (U.N.) observers when they were assaulted and killed by the North Koreans, who claimed that the tree had been planted by Kim Il-Sung.”
“North Korean propaganda machine immediately spun this incident in their favor, describing how American aggressors forced the North Korean guards to defend themselves.”
“The CIA considered that this was a pre-planned attack and evaluated their options and the US went to DEFCON 3 the day after the two US Army officers were murdered.”
“Originally, the plan was to trim the poplar tree but now it was decided that – back with completely overwhelming force – the tree had to go.”
“South Korea and US initiated Operation Paul Bunyan which resulted in the following:”
“-Task Force Vierra (a convoy of 23 US and South Korean vehicles) drove into the JSA without warning the North Koreans at 0700. The vehicles had a compliment of two eight-man teams of combat engineers equipped with chain-saws to remove the tree.”
“-Task Force Vierra would be accompanied by two 30-man security platoons from the Joint Security Force, who were armed with pistols and axe handles. 1st Platoon secured northern entrance to the JSA via the Bridge of No Return while 2nd Platoon secured southern edge.”
“-Another company had activated the detonation systems for the explsoives on Freedom Bridge and had the main gun of a combat engineer vehicle aimed at the middle of the bridge to make sure that it collapsed should explsoives vailed.”
“They were also building rafts on the Imjin River in case an emergency evacuation was required.”
“-A 64-man task force of South Korean Special Forces accompanied them, armed with clubs and were trained in Tae Kwon Do but bore no firearms.”
“Once they parked their trucks near the Bridge of No Return, they began throwing out sandbags and armed themselves with M16s with grenade launchers.”
“Some of the commandos also had claymore mines strapped to their chests while holding the trigger in their hands, shouting at the North Koreans and daring them to cross the bridge.”
“-A US infantry company in 20 transport helicopters and seven Cobra attack choppers were right behind them. And behind those helicopters were B-52 bombers escorted by F4 Phantom jet fighters. F5 and F86 fighters also took flight to provide overwatch at higher altitudes.”
“FB-111 fighter-bombers and more F4 Phantoms were deployed, and the U.S.S. Midway (aircraft carrier) and its task force was moved just off-shore.”
“Near the DMZ were more heavily armed US and South Korean infantry and artillery units, an air defense regiment with mobile surface-to-air missile batteries and main battle tank platoons were waiting to back up the special ops team.”
“Bases near the DMZ were prepped for demolition in case of a North Korean counter-attack. 12,000 more soldiers and 1,800 more Marines were deployed to Korea, and nuclear-capable strategic bombers were called in to circle over the JSA.”
“Task Force Viera – who was directly responsible for cutting down the tree – totaled a little over 800 men.”
“North Korea deployed about 200 troops in response and were all armed with small arms and support weapons, and were deployed in buses but they didn’t immediately disembark their busses because they were bewildered by the show of force that was arrayed before them.”
“When they finally got out of their buses and set up their machine gun positions, all they could do was watch in silence as the tree was felled. After all of this, a six meter tree stump was left standing.”
“All of this because a tree’s foilage was blocking the view of an observation post.”-Tangowolf
“I love sharing the story of Deborah Sampson. She was effectively the American Mulan. During the Revolutionary War she masqueraded as a man to fight.”
“While she did eventually get caught after being wounded, she managed to avoid that issue once by digging a musketball out of her thigh!”
“She was the only woman following the war to receive a soldier’s pension. Awesome.”-22glowworm22
“Melbourne was once terrorised by a crime gang that consisted exclusively of men with one leg and crutches.”
“‘The Crutchy Push, with one exception, consisted of one-legged men. The exception was a one-armed man who kept half a brick in his sewn up empty sleeve. He led his followers into battle swinging the weighted sleeve around his head.’”
“‘Behind him came the men on crutches – each one expert at balancing on one leg. The tip of the crutch was used to jab an opponent in the midriff. With the enemy gasping for breath the crutch would be reversed and the metal-shod arm rest would be used as a club.’”
“It gets better.”
“After several incidences of their member outrunning cops sent to track them down, the police got together the ten most violent police officers in Australia, called them ‘The Terrible Ten’ and sent them to beat up the Crutchie Push with hoses, because Australia is clearly one giant Carry On movie.”-suitcasedreaming
“So about a thousand years ago a Pope, declared that his predecessor was a wicked priest and shall be tried for vile behavior. The problem was that his predecessor was dead and 6 feet under.”
“So, logically, the Pope exumes the body and puts it on the defense stand to stand trial. The corpse loses. Thus the punishment was the cutting off of the three fingers on the right hand used to bless people, and the mutilated corpse was put back to rest.”
“Later the good ole Pope decides that the punishment wasn’t severe enough, so he RE-EXHUMED the dead f**ker, tries him again, finds him guilty, again, and dumps the dead pope in the Tiber F**KING River.”
“Thankfully a monk retrieved the body. The Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox Christians happened 60 years later. If you don’t believe me, google the Cadaver Synod.”-Saramello
Truth is stranger than fiction when it comes to history and any history buff will know just how true that is.
And strange things and funny history facts are being added every single day to the ongoing compendium that is the human experience.
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!
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.
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, was accused of single-handedly ruining France’s finances. Official estimates claim court expenses alone were 7% of France’s total budget but the real figure was a lot higher. She was given the name “Madame Déficit” during the French Revolution.
The post Marie Antoinette, Queen of France… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
In mid-18th century France, eating potatoes was considered cruel and unusual punishment: potatoes were thought of as feed for livestock, and they were believed to cause leprosy in humans. The fear was so widespread that the French passed a law banning them in 1748.
The post In mid-18th century France, eating… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
One of the coolest things about reading history is realizing just how bananas all those real people were.
Kings, military leaders, pioneers of art, and explorers—there are countless examples of people who, if they’d been dreamed up in a book or a movie, would be too far-fetched to even believe.
And yet they were very real.
But with all those stories come the tendencies to over-hype, omit key details, or just buy into false narratives entirely.
Redditor ReallyRealMaoZedong apparently was in the mood for skepticism when he asked:
“Who is the most overrated person in history?”
“King Tut. He didn’t really do much, he was just a boy who unfortunately died young. We just happened to find his tomb and that made him famous lol.”
“The tomb itself, while amazing and much to learn from, is a result of his culture and the line he happened to be born into, not really anything HE chose to do.” — barbaramillicent
“King Arthur. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.”
“Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.” — bozwold
“I don’t know about ‘most overrated’ but MaoZeDong was a brilliant guerrilla leader who transitioned into be very good at retaining power while being very bad at running a country.”
“I would not hang giant portraits of the guy all over my country.” — dieinafirenazi
“Gandhi.”
“I can go on…” — 00__starstruck__00
“Not in all history, but Chris McCandless was a f’king moron who does not deserve to be romanticised.”
“Against all advice, he strolled out into the Alaskan wilderness with no idea what he was doing, with no map, underprepared, undersupplied and with no research into seasonal dangers, smashed up some cabins, shot a moose despite not being able to preserve or store the meat…”
“…thought he could teach himself to identify edible wild mishrooms, didn’t look beyond the river crossing he initially used where he would have found a hand-operated cable car half a mile away and died – probably from eating strange seeds – in an abandoned bus on a known hunting trail.”
“He was not pioneering, or inspiring, or bold, or free, he was f’king stupid and somehow this inspires people!” — Mischief_Makers
“Hitler. Hear me out!”
“National Socialism and Antisemitism was not something he invented and I am pretty sure that if it wasn’t for him somebody else like Goebbels or Hess would have become German dictator.”
“When people say, oh if only Hitler wasn’t born then WW2 or the Shoa would not have happened, that’s utter bullsh*t. I wish while teaching about the Holocaust, people would put it into context.”
“The climate of polarization in the 1920s in Germany is very similar to what is going on now in the USA. People were and are seeking out extremists with conspiracy theories to follow because they look for scapegoats.”
“The man on the top is just a symptom for a systemic problem which lies much deeper.” — marlenshka
“Ben Bradlee. He was lionized for going after Nixon as editor of the Washington Post.”
“But he lied under oath during the trial of a Black man who was accused of murdering one of Kennedy’s mistresses, all because he was friends with JFK and wanted to cover up his indiscretions. An innocent Black man nearly went to the electric chair.”
“He only pursued the truth when the president was a Republican.” — The_Bee_Sneeze
“Charles de Gaulle. MF was an officer of the army that lost half of France in 2 weeks to the Germans in WW2. Flees like a cockroach to the UK where somehow embodies the spirit of the resistance, somehow receives the title of General, even though his tasks were not dangerous nor fundamental.”
“When the allies take over France, he is not in any of the strategic discussions among generals of different armies, nonetheless he walks into Paris as their great liberator. Couple of years later gets elected president (because somehow he has managed to keep his popularity??).”
“While president, North African colonies declare war (and independence) from France. Many people die, and the french economy and territories takes a huge blow. Also he managed to dismantle the oldest European university of the world (Université de Paris)…”
“But nooooo! His name is on an airport, many avenues and countless plazas accross France.” — KarmaWhoreRepeating
“Ayn Rand. Elitist prick, complete nutbag, husband abuser, most likely committed infidelity. Moreover, her ideas are terrible. So dumb.”
“She clearly thinks poor=dumb and useless, when she doesn’t realize how privileged education is what makes someone ‘productive’ in the way that she imagined.”
“She even says it in Atlas Shrugged, John gault and Francisco wouldn’t have become who they were if they hadn’t had that one philosophy teacher who became a short order cook because the world is so mediocre and undeserving of his genius.”
“And the saddest part is so many people after reading Atlas Shrugged are like ‘yeah, selfishness is the best, anyone who is poor is weak and stupid. My life is good and it’s impossible to have a good life unless you won it for yourself so I must be the best person ever and all you plebs can eat my sh**.’ “
“Randian economics is a conflict in terms.” — Begotten_Glint
“John F. Kennedy.”
“Pill-popping, booty-slaying, trust-fund, back alley politician who conveniently only took an interest in civil rights in preparation for re-election.”
“He was handsome, charming, and his tragic death made him seem much better than he actually was.” — Way_2_Go_Donny
So there you have it.
Hope this list didn’t deflate any of your heroes.
But if it did, consider the value of being in the know.
Everyone who has gone through a history class in the United States likely learned about things like dictators, leaders and Presidents of the past. Teachers will tell you about World War I and II.
You might learn about people like Benjamin Franklin, Ivan the Terrible or Catherine the Great.
However, you might not know some of the not safe for work details omitted from the classroom about these famous historical figures.
“What are some NSFW history facts that don’t get taught in school?”
Now that we’re adults, there’s plenty of facts to still learn about outside the classroom.
“If you look up Edward Russell in history books or even Wikipedia, you learn about his military service, including Admiral of the Royal Fleet for some famous battles.”
“What they don’t teach is that he threw a party so epic it’s still being talked about 300 years later.”
“In 1694, he threw a party for officers, and with 6,000 guests coming, wanted to make it special. So, he made the world’s largest cocktail.”
“Drained the garden fountain and used that as a giant punch bowl with hundreds of gallons of liquor, over a half ton of sugar, thousands of lemons, etc.”
“He hired bartenders to paddle around in boats, scoop it up, and serve it to attendees.”
“At some point, it began to rain, so they put a tent up over the fountain to prevent it getting watered down.”
“About a week after they started, they had drank every last drop, the fountain was dry, and the party was over.” – MyNameIsRay
“Damn must have been one hell of a week.” – mattisdabezt
“Not a single person in attendance remembered any of it.” – Abbhorase
“If you remember it, you weren’t there.” – RabSimpson
“Powdered wigs were invented to cover up head sores caused by syphilis.” – buddywilson2828
“Syphilis also eventually destroys your nose, which is why old timey writing frequently refers to how prominent a person’s nose is while expounding on their moral character. Essentially, ‘this guy is super great, he doesn’t even have syphilis!’” – SteamboatMcGee
“And small pox scars too. and lice. and all kinds of nasty things because while population was booming, indoor plumbing and clean water were not things yet.” – Makabajones
“The ‘Father of Microbiology,’ Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, was the first to examine semen under a microscope immediately after ejaculating in his wife.” – misein-anthropos
“The ‘Daddy of Microbiology.’” – ExplainLikeImAnOtter
“He actually made a point to emphasize that he got it the sanctioned way because, you know, normal guys don’t spank it.” – gertalives
“In his defense, he could have been trying for the most accurate environment next to still being inside her; he knows that he doesn’t know everything, and so keeping conditions of the test as close as possible to the conditions of the events he’d like to understand is sensible.” – Beard_of_Valor
“When he presented his discovery to his fellow scientists, they had to pronounce the obligatory ‘NO HOMO’ to preserve their hetero-ness.” – churros4burros
“Alexander the Great had 361 concubines (official prostitutes), 4 more and he would have one for every day of the year.” – Redditor
“Yeah but that would be excessive.” – bigblueh
“Then we’d have to call him Alexander the Excessive.” – nakiron
“During the age of sail, any time a large ship would come into port, the men often wouldn’t be allowed shore leave for a few days. So you would see small boats packed with prostitutes heading out to the ship at mooring.”
“Larger ships of the line would have over 500 men aboard so there could definitely be a couple hundred ladies brought aboard ‘behind the captain’s back.’ and with virtually no privacy aboard, you would have spaces in the ship with hundreds of couples going at it at once.”
“There were definitely a lot of captains that didn’t allow any women aboard, so the sailors on those ships would just have to wait until they could go ashore.” – strengthof10interns
“Also a reason why piracy was, in the long term, an unsustainable economy: because most of the crew would blow their entire take of a prize with women (and to a lesser extent booze) the next time they went ashore. Did wonders for the economy of Kingston though.”
“I love pirates but goddamn they had no long term plan.” – wakattawakaranai
“I doubt most guys in that line of work back then didn’t expect to make it to old age anyways. Might as well live it up while you’re hearts still beating.” – strengthof10interns
“Look at Blackbeard. The most famous pirate of all time – was only a pirate for 2 years and was dead by 38.” – RudolphClancy88
“There was a Greek general who was supposed to lead a major expedition to Sicily. The night before he left he got wasted and walked around Athens with his other drunk friends and knocked all of the penises off of the statues in Athens.”
“This caused him to be arrested, he missed the expedition and they lost almost all of the men they sent to Sicily because only he knew the plan well enough to pull it off.” – izlanda_
“My classics teacher in college LOVED to talk about Alcibiades. He called him the ‘Sterling Archer of Ancient Greece.’” – ParaplegicFish
“Alcibiades. Probably a false accusation. Which got him to defect to Sparta. Where he showed them how to defeat the Athenians and had an affair with one of the king’s (Sparta had two) wives.”
“So he ran to Persia, learned Persian, had an affair with the king’s female relative, showed Persia how to defeat Athens and Sparta. Went back to Athens and got his rank back, then quit.”
“Years later he owned a vast estate where he hosted the Athenian fleet warning them they had their ships positioned where they could be attacked. The fleet officers dismissed his concerns and the enemy burned their ships.” – Oknight
“Ben Franklin was a super sex freak and loved to tell younger dudes to have sex with older (old) women.” – ericb67
“Ben Franklin was a playboy. He was the US Ambassador to France and slept with the daughters of many French nobles. And when he arrived his clothing would influence French fashion.” – BourbonBinge
“Dude also enjoyed taking ‘air baths.’”
“Which meant that, while he was in France, he would just sit naked in front of an open window in his living room while he did his morning paperwork.” – Gemmabeta
“Catherine The Great had a parlor room filled with explicit, erotic furniture she commissioned personally. We’re talking blow jobs carved into chairs, an end table where giant dicks’ torrential cumshots were holding up a marble countertop, a woman getting eaten out by a demon on a throne… homegirl had taste.” – OnWarmLeatherette
“It’s all been destroyed but holy sh*t look at this lol.” – fullofpaint
“French President Félix Faure went out via death by blowjob from a mistress.” – Ascribed_innovation
“He had a stroke or massive bleeding of some sort, it’s a bit unclear what exactly. Presumably the increased strain was too much for his circulatory system.”
“That’s what happens when you’re banging chicks in their twenties while you’re almost sixty.” – AntiChr1st
“If you die while nutting you are both cumming and going.” – Watamote_lover
“Anne Frank’s diary talked a lot about masturbation, but most of it was edited out.” – waxmygwbush
“And about her lesbian crush on one of her friends.” – xandrenia
“‘Once when I was spending the night at Jacque’s, I could no longer restrain my curiosity about her body, which she’d always hidden from me and which I’d never seen. I asked her whether, as proof of our friendship, we could touch each other’s breasts. Jacque refused. I also had a terrible desire to kiss her, which I did. Every time I see a female nude, such as the Venus in my art history book, I go into ecstasy. Sometimes I find them so exquisite I have to struggle to hold back my tears. If only I had a girlfriend!’”
“Writing about her crushes on her female friend and the experiments she had with her.” – Ybuzz
We definitely won’t find any of this information in a text book, but thank goodness we have the internet!
There’s so much we don’t know that we don’t even know.
Someone born in 55 BC who died in 35 AD (at the age of 90) would have witnessed the rise and fall of Julius Caesar, the reign of Augustus and founding of the Roman Empire, Cleopatra’s whole reign and the fall of Egypt to Rome, and the birth, life, and crucifixion of Jesus.
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