Believing that a war with the United States was inevitable, Canada’s first Prime Minister proposed a plan to amass an army of Sikhs, well-known for their courage in battle, to invade California on behalf of Canada. His strategy was to send these Sikh warriors to California to take control of San Francisco, using it as a safeguard for Montreal and Canada. This perceived threat of a U.S. invasion in 1867 was predicated on a proposed bill from 1866 – which ultimately did not pass – that would have allowed the British colonies to become part of the USA if they wished. This idea wasn’t completely off the table, as there were still discussions about Newfoundland potentially joining the United States instead of Canada up until the late 1940s.
Memorial Day Remembered: Six Facts About This Honorable Day
Memorial Day, an American holiday dedicated to honoring the country’s fallen military personnel, carries with it a rich and poignant history. The following fascinating facts shed light on the depth and significance of this solemn day.
1. Waterloo: The Birthplace of Memorial Day
The tranquil town of Waterloo, New York is acknowledged as the origin of the Memorial Day tradition. On May 5, 1866, local businesses shuttered their doors and townsfolk gathered to adorn the resting places of soldiers with decorations. This marked the first formal observance of what would become an enduring national tradition.
2. Manila American Cemetery: The Largest Collection of American World War II Graves
The Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines holds the record for containing the greatest number of graves for U.S. personnel who lost their lives during World War II. The cemetery is the final resting place of 17,206 individuals, with 16,636 of these belonging to U.S. personnel.
3. The Dutch Tradition at the Margraten American Cemetery
Memorial Day in the Netherlands carries its own unique tradition at the American military cemetery in Margraten. Every Memorial Day, Dutch families participate in a solemn “adoption” ritual, with each family choosing a grave to honor with flowers. This touching tribute ensures that every grave in the cemetery receives a personal commemoration.
4. The Inception of Memorial Day and its Deep Roots in Civil War History
The very first Memorial Day was conceived in the wake of the American Civil War. Freed slaves, in an act of gratitude and respect, held a commemorative funeral for the Union soldiers who had fought for their liberation in 1865.
5. The Unchanging Symbol at the Vietnam Memorial Wall
The Vietnam Memorial Wall holds an indelible symbol of soldiers still missing in action (M.I.A.). Each M.I.A. soldier’s name is etched with a cross, a poignant promise that their loss is not forgotten. However, should a soldier be found, a circle is drawn around the existing cross. To this day, the memorial has no circles, a stark reminder of those yet to return.
6. A Sobering Fact about Vietnam War Casualties
During the Vietnam War, a staggering 61% of U.S troops who were killed were under 21 years of age. Many of these young men had been drafted, their lives abruptly transitioning from adolescence to the harsh realities of war.
These six facts offer just a glimpse into the depth and breadth of the history and significance of Memorial Day. As we remember those who have given their lives for our freedom, let these stories serve as a reminder of the courage, sacrifice, and youth of those we honor.
After fighting in WWI, A. A. Milne…
After fighting in WWI, A. A. Milne had PTSD so severe, he was reminded of whizzing bullets by buzzing bees, and cannons firing by balloons popping. Wanting a lighthearted distraction and a way to explain to his son the difficulties of war, he wrote Winnie the Pooh stories as his way of doing so.
Smedley Butler was one of the most….
Smedley Butler was one of the most decorated Marines with 2 Medals of Honor. He served 33 years & became an anti war advocate. He wrote “War is a Racket” about war profiteering. He said “the best he [Al Capone] could do was to operate his racket in 3 districts. I operated on 3 continents.”
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People Divulge The Most Disturbing Facts They Almost Regret Ever Learning
I’m a big fan of horror movies and quite a few of my favorite films happen to be depressing, hard-hitting dramas the average person might not choose to watch.
But truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction and real life can often be much more disturbing than anything we might see on our screens or read in books.
For instance, have you ever heard of the Kaimingjie germ weapon attack? During World War II, the Japanese bombed the Chinese with fleas infected with the bubonic plague.
The attack is just one of the many war crimes the Japanese committed against the Chinese, and that’s including the atrocities, among them human experimentation, committed at Unit 731.
If you have the stomach for it—and I have rarely been more serious in my life—the film Men Behind the Sun dramatizes many of these crimes.
It turns out there’s no shortage of disturbing facts out there.
Let’s face it, humans are messed up.
We heard quite a few of them after Redditor Ddeddffddvvf asked the online community:
“What was a fact you regret knowing?”
“From personal experience…”
“From personal experience… just how fast pigs… process… a corpse.”
“Had an old goat die in the barn and didn’t find her for a couple of hours. At the time we had two pigs that were a few months old. Didn’t realize just how much we had messed up by letting them be in with the goats that day.”
“Come evening, we go to close up and do the evening chores, and find half of a goat spilled all over the floor with our pigs rooting around the guts. And that’s the story of how fifteen-year-old me learned to respect pigs.” ~ CalamityJay
“More people jumped…”
“More people jumped from the burning World Trade Center on 9/11 than you think. Do yourself a favor and don’t Google it.” ~ GoreyFeldman
To which this person replied:
“Seriously. I was on a 9/11 kick recently, if you want to call it that, and I came across a documentary on YouTube of footage stitched together from the first plane hitting to the final building collapsing, lasting about 1 hour and 40 minutes.”
“No interviews, just cellphone footage, old home cameras, and some news footage sprinkled in. There’s a section in the documentary of people beginning to jump one after another. It continues on for the rest of the documentary and it’s very disheartening.” ~ TheChubbyBuns
“The Challenger space shuttle…”
“The Challenger space shuttle astronauts were most likely alive and awake on the way down.” ~ thezoidberg
“An octopus penis…”
“An octopus penis is actually one of their tentacles. So if you would go and pet an octopus at Sea World or some other place you could be groping their penis.” ~ TillyOTilly
“Every year thousands of children…”
“Every year thousands of children write to Santa Clause. One of the most requested things children ask for on their Christmas lists is a dad.” ~ jadedgenie
“There was an experiment…”
“There was an experiment once where, every hour, a rat had to choose between getting fed or having the pleasure nerve of its brain stimulated. And the rat being tested starved every time. It’s pretty interesting but also kind of sad.”
“Thanks, Freeman’s Mind.” ~ Superflamegameplays
To which this person replied:
“Yes, but for those experiments, they keep the rats isolated in cages with nothing else to do. So of course they choose that option all the time.” ~ hammermuffin
“Male ducks…”
“Male ducks gang-rape female ducks.” ~ PopcornVT
To which this person replied:
“Male and female ducks are also in an evolutionary arms race to develop more and more convoluted genitals to prevent/enable the rape. I am not kidding.”
“Female ducks develop more and more convoluted vagina shapes to make it more difficult, and males respond by developing ever longer explosive spiraling corkscrew dicks.
“The females that can control when they mate (only relaxing their vaginal shape when it’s consensual) are more successful and the males who are better at raping are more successful (in the sense of passing on their genes/having more living offspring), so they just keep evolving in that direction.” ~ holysh*treddit
“Your child is more likely…”
“Your child is more likely to be abused by someone you know than a stranger. You literally have to protect children more from their own family and friends than random criminals.” ~ CerseiLemon
“The fact that at literally any second…”
“The fact that at literally any second you could lose someone you love. Everyone “knows” this but once it’s happened a few times you’re acutely aware of it. A car wreck, a miscarriage, a heart attack, stroke.” ~ SaltyTapeworm
“This is dark, but…”
“This is dark, but in the U.S., police are not legally obligated to protect you.”
“There was a case where a police department refused to enforce a restraining order or act after a father kidnapped his three daughters because they assumed he would bring them back to his wife eventually.”
“He ended up killing them and driving their bodies to the police station, where he was then shot and killed. The police department was sued for not acting, but was found not guilty.” ~ ecoseeker
“That there are…”
“That there are anywhere between 25-50 active serial killers in the United States, according to the FBI.” ~ nmacro
“So when they land on your sandwich…”
“Flies don’t have teeth. So, when they land on your sandwich and want to eat some, they barf up the contents of their stomach (often containing another animal’s s***) so the digestive enzymes can get on the food and then they eat.” ~ Tmbgkc
We apologize in advance if any of these truly scared the hell out of you. It’s a big, beautiful world out there, but we’d be lying if we told you it’s not without its horrors.
While we’re at it, we’ll leave you with this—did you know that a brain aneurysm can happen at any time?
Aneurysms are unpredictable and may not show any symptoms until they rupture.
That’s a fact that has kept me up at night sometimes. And if you didn’t know about it, then you certainly know now.
Be afraid… be very afraid.
In 1931 misinformation and inflammatory…
In 1931 misinformation and inflammatory remarks by a radio station helped provoke the Iowa Cow War, eventually leading to the governor declaring martial law and deploying the National Guard.
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Jeannette Rankin, the first…
Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the US, was a lifelong pacifist; she voted against entering WWI, voted the sole vote against declaring war against Japan after Pearl Harbor, and later led peace activism against US military intervention in Vietnam while in her 80s.
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In the 1920s, one reason corsets…
In the 1920s, one reason corsets went out of style was because they were made of lots of metal which was needed for tools during WWI. The U.S War Industries Board even asked women to stop buying them which helped them save enough metal to build two battleships.
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If You Only Had 30 Minutes to Hide From a Nuclear Blast, Where Would You Go? Here’s What People Said.
This sure isn’t the most pleasant question you’ve ever been asked, but we still want to know what people would say, right?
And, hopefully (fingers crossed), we’ll never have to actually worry about this, but we’re gonna dive in!
If you had 30 minutes to hide from a nuclear blast, where would you go?
Here’s what AskReddit users had to say.
1. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen.
“The Eisenhower tunnel on I-70 in Colorado (1.7 miles long).
Unless it turns into Stephen King’s “The Stand”…”
2. It might work?
“I’d always heard a basement of a library is good because books may absorb some radiation.”
3. You don’t have to go anywhere!
“I work at a nuclear pharmacy which has dosimeters, geiger counters, potassium iodide tablets, Radiac spray, PPE and lead, and the break room/office is an extra vault that was made to house a particle accelerator (known as a cyclotron).
I’m at work right now. So, assuming I’m safe from the initial blast radius, I’d probably go sit at my desk, scroll through Reddit and watch the world end.”
4. Out in the country.
“The nearest city is over 30 miles away, and it’s all open country from where I am and for at least another 10 miles to the mountains in the other direction.
Either I’d jump in the truck and try to make it to the mountains thru the reservation or crawl under the house and hope for the best.”
5. Secret spot.
“There is an old building near me that has a basement. I know what boards to move to get into the basement from the outside.
It’s the only building I know of within about 100 miles that is entirely reinforced brick masonry with a basement, and I’m sure I’d spend the apocalyptic event chatting with several homeless people who also know about the board.
We’d all survive though.”
6. That’s where I’ll be.
“There’s a building at the college I work at that goes 80 feet underground and has 6 foot thick inward sloping concrete walls
I’ll be in there.”
7. All over the place.
“Pretty easy, I would just go to my nearest bomb shelter. They are all over the place here in Finland and can house up to 4 million people (so more than enough room for the entire urban population) .
Every metro station also doubles as a bomb shelter, and I can walk to one of those within 10 minutes so I would probably chill there (there are probably a bunch of shelters even closer to me though but could be busy).
You can actually walk across a lot of Helsinki centre completely underground (I often do when it is raining), the underground network of tunnels is huge. And all bomb proof.
Finland actually has one of the most thorough civil defense programs in the world.”
8. Fallout shelter.
“There’s a fallout shelter in a bank about a mile down from where I live that was built back in the 1960s.
I’d probably yank some snacks and a bottle of Jack from the kitchen and sprint down there, then hunker down for a few days.
If it’s locked, then… well… I can polish off the Jack and wait for the fireworks.”
9. Sounds like you’ll be fine.
“If I knew it was coming, I’d just drive away. Distance makes all the difference with nuclear blasts.
I’m close to mountains in the outer suburbs of a big city, I’d drive in that mountain direction as we often have winds from there. Minimal fallout that way too.
If leaving the city was not an option, I’d just hit up my basement. It’s below ground enough that I think I’d be fairly safe.”
10. Now I’m sad.
“I’d gather my dogs and cats and go up to our bedroom and cuddle my husband.
Give the doggies and kitties some treats on the bed and hope they don’t jump off so that my last moments are a cuddle fest.”
11. Wait for it.
“I’d grab a six pack, grab a chair and sit outside calling my family and friends while waiting for the end.
I’m not suicidal but any world that would exist after my city gets bombed would be unrecognizable and probably not worth surviving for.”
12. Pedal to the metal.
“I’d drive like crazy for 30 minutes.
If I drive at 100km/hour, I would be 50km from the center of the explosion. A good distance.’
13. It’s under control.
“Switzerland.
They have the 110% capacity of their population in bunkers so there’s room for me.”
14. To the library!
“There is an old library built in the 1960’s less than a mile from my house with a basement fallout shelter.
I know because I always see the old 1960’s fallout shelter signs and consider stealing one but the potential of getting caught and being banned from the library for the rest of my life stops me every time.”
Now it’s your turn!
In the comments, tell us about when you told a lie that spiraled out of control.
Please and thank you!
The post If You Only Had 30 Minutes to Hide From a Nuclear Blast, Where Would You Go? Here’s What People Said. appeared first on UberFacts.
Older People Talk About Which Year Felt Worse Than 2020 and They Explain Why
I’ve read quite a bit about the year 1968 and I’ve always said to myself, “wow, that must have been so exciting and interesting to live through such a tumultuous year.”
Now that we’re living through an awful year, my mind has definitely been changed. This is not fun, it’s not exciting, and it’s honestly pretty terrifying. But I guess that we should all appreciate that we’re living through some very interesting times that will be studied and written about forever.
What are some other years that felt worse than 2020?
Let’s get some history lessons from folks on AskReddit.
1. Crash in Finland.
“My parents still think the economic crash of the 1990s that happened in Finland was worse, and in Finland it killed more people in the form of suicides than Corona has thus far.
I was just born around that time. And lots of people just lost everything. Companies folded left and right. Loan intrests were crushing people.
Then right after that we got dot com bubble.”
2. The burst bubble.
“Personally speaking:
2002 the dot-com bubble burst and I lost a cushy job, that was pretty bad.
2008 great recession happened, again was laid off, that was pretty bad too.2019 was awful. I found out my recently deceased father had an entire other family. I guess technically, we were his other family.
Met the ones he abandoned (my new older half siblings) last summer and it was incredibly awkward and for some reason left me hollow and extremely full of guilt.”
3. A personal story.
“I’m 42. I’ve had years that were personally pretty bad, but this is super weird times.
Like, late 1997, the day before my 20th birthday, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and the first 6 months of 1998 were especially very, very stressful and scary, but at least I could go out with friends, I threw myself in to school, I worked, I tried to be useful or out of the way at home. I didn’t have to think about it 24/7.
I deactivated my FB, Insta, and Twitter October 1 and I’m planning to keep them like that at least through the election, maybe longer. Can’t change what’s going on, but I can’t have all of this crap living rent-free in my head all the time.”
4. JFK.
“1963 because President Kennedy was shot.
My teacher cried and my father left home.”
5. Interesting perspective.
“The last quarter of 2001 was more intensely miserable.
2020 misery is more spread out and not quite as terrifying.”
6. Serbia.
“Bombing of Serbia in 1999.
NATO was only supposed to bomb military objects, but they bombed hospitals, markets, random populated areas. I was in the hospital with my dad when the sirens came on the whole hospital went to the basement, lucky the hospital wasn’t hit, after the danger my dad drove us back he told me not to look out the window, being a kid I did look only to see innocent people dead along the whole street as the flea market was hit on a weekend…
I am 25 y/o now I still have nightmares about it occasionally. Also NATO used prohibited weapons with uranium which also caused a lot of people to get cancer from the radiation years after…”
7. History in the making.
“The year 1970.
People dying or being maimed for life (both mentally and physically) in a stupid, nonsensical war. Richard Nixon was President. The government refusing to listen to hundreds of thousands of people protesting the war, and people of all sorts not just college kids and hippies.
I participated in a HUGE protest in DC and walked down Pennsylvania Avenue with a lot of other people, holding the hands of my two kids. “We are speaking to our government. Never forget.””
8. It was bad.
“2008 was a really bad year.
Big financial crash, lots of people lost a lot of money, especially from their savings and retirements. Lots of layoffs, including me, and really high unemployment and few jobs to move to.”
9. The Eighties.
“1983 was probably the year we came closest to global nuclear war. Even worse than the Cuban Missile Crisis.
There was a large confluence of circumstances and events (some related, some not) that could have spelled doom.”
10. Bad years.
“1994-95.
I spent a good bit of time homeless or living in a tent. I was in the US illegally and couldn’t get any form of assistance without being deported, and I was too small for most places to even consider employing me under the table.
Also, honorable mentions to 2016-17 for my divorce year and pretty much the entire period of 1992-1997 for me. 2020 doesn’t crack my top ten worst years, aside from the collapse of western civilization it really hasn’t been too bad on me.”
11. Way back when.
“It’s has to be 1947 when India got independence from britishers and then divided into Pakistan(Islamic country), India (republic nation).
People were forced to leave according to their religion. They were burnt alive and r*ped. Around 2 million people died, 14 million misplaced.
And my father told me that my grandfather who used to work as a ticket checker in railway had seen trains full of dead bodies.”
12. This is maybe as bad…
“Late 1960s and early 70s, we had the Vietnam war body count nightly on the news, for years. Everyone was worried about being drafted. I was too young.
There was plenty of angst to go around then. But I feel this year has probably been as bad or worse.”
13. Chaotic times.
“1968-1969.
Started with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. It was a military disaster for the North Vietnamese, but a big surprise to the American public – they had been told the war was effectively won. And from there it just got worse.
Student riots. City riots. MLK was assassinated in early April and the ghettos exploded. Then in early June, I was on a South Vietnamese hilltop firebase. One of our less English-proficient officers came up to the American advisers in the afternoon. “You know Kennedy, ya? They shoot him!” The three of us looked at him. I said, “Yeah Đại Úy (Captain), back in 1963. So?”
“NO!” he said, “They shoot him now!” Then he got frustrated with us and stomped off. Weird. What’s up with the Đại Úy? We couldn’t get American radio (AFVN) in the daytime, but later that night we found out what he was talking about. Another Kennedy? WTF is going on back home?
I got back on leave in December. America was nuts. I couldn’t walk through the airport without starting a fight. I wasn’t fighting. Someone would want to yell at me, and someone else would start yelling at him, and eventually they’d forget I was there – because I wasn’t. My instructions were to keep walking. The war had come home. Racial justice had graduated to racial war.
It was almost a relief to get back to Vietnam. Seemed saner.
Bad year for the USA. 1969 was only better because some of the things people were expecting to happen, didn’t. But it wasn’t much better.”
Now we want to hear from even more older folks.
In the comments, please tell us what years you think were worse than 2020.
We’d love to hear from you!
The post Older People Talk About Which Year Felt Worse Than 2020 and They Explain Why appeared first on UberFacts.