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History isn’t just about heroic battles, grand adventures, moving speeches, scientific inventions, and social progress. For good and for ill, people are very complicated and nuanced beings… with a dash of depravity and lust thrown in. Human history is full of truly shocking, dark, and terrifying events, but some books skim over the more disturbing details.
The r/AskReddit community recently shared some pieces of history that would even make many adults do a double-take. Scroll down to have a read.
But be warned, some of these historical facts are definitely not for the faint of heart, while others might make you feel very uncomfortable.

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#1

30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The Battle of Blair Mountain. Coal miners wanted to unionize and mine owners wanted more money. A million rounds of ammunition were fired and the National Guard had to intervene.

That's a shamefully short summary of it, but it was literally a war for labor rights.

To quote Robert Evans on Behind the Bastards (Part 1 on YouTube [here](https://youtu.be/XWvVdjmBhHc?si=ekzrYcd3taBhmSg0)):

>We never talk about the time they got bombed and gassed and shot at by machine guns. We just leave that out of history books. The 8-hour work day was entirely gained by polite people with signs protesting. That's how we have a weekend, not the men who charged machine gun nests and sniped at corporate guards.

>All these things we consider just a part of life like the fact that you're supposed to get a weekend; all of these things were bought in blood by men who are willing to kill for these rights who are willing to die for these things. And we don't talk about that even though it's cool and interesting because it might give people ideas.

TacticalFluke , Kinograms Report

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Gabriele Alfredo Pini
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2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Rednecks with their red bandana against the corporations and the oligarchs. How times are changed!

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    #2

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults >One of Columbus’ men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus’ brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus’ command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus’ men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people. “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel,” De Las Casas wrote. “My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.”

    Source: "Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery." by Eric Kasum, published October 11, 2010

    It feels like a conspiracy theory, but I swear they teach us about Columbus when we are too young to be exposed to his atrocities (witnessed first hand, as well as documented in his own hand in his journals) so that he will be a "controversial figure" who "might have gotten a couple things wrong about what country he was in" rather than "a f*****g horrendous vile human being on par with the worst shitheads in history.".

    FuzzzyRam , wikipedia.org Report

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    Kira Okah
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    2 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Bartolomé de Las Casas' accounts only mention Christopher Columbus on his visiting entourage, where he had seven natives with him in Seville. He was only nine when this visit happened. From what I can find of de la Casas' book (History of the Indies, Book 2), the accounts of the atrocities are very real, but they were not ordered by Columbus, but under Governor Bobadilla and Nicolás de Ovando (the two governors AFTER Columbus). Columbus was a prick, but putting other prick's crimes under his name is absolving those who actually did do the crime.

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    #3

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults 796 babies bodies found in a septic tank in Galway, Ireland.

    796. Babies.

    Orko90:
    I think the pertinent info you're missing is that the septic tank belonged to a "Home" for unmarried mothers that was owned and operated by the Bon Secours Sisters, an order of Catholic nuns.

    hackyslashy , Mike Bird Report

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    Dani
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The despair caused by these institutions all over Ireland and indeed the world is unimaginable. I don't think I know of a single person here in Ireland who doesn't have a grandmother or a great aunt or family friend who was affected by these "mother and baby homes" such a shameful chapter of both the Catholic church's history and the pervasive culture of shame around unwed mothers. Heartbreaking.

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    Seduction, love, cheating, betrayal, lust, and longing are as much a part of history as war and famine, conquests and rebellions, progress and repressions. However, for some folks, talking about brutality, warfare, political backstabbing, and complex statesmanship is more palatable than ever even hinting that s-e-x exists.

    That’s one of those little ironies of modern life: some topics are considered taboo even though they’re objectively part and parcel of the human condition, like other things.
    #4

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The Radium Girls from the United States. Just read a book on them and it was horrific! The radium poisoning made their jaw bones fall out with their teeth. Not to mention all the sarcomas and the one girl who hemmoraghed and bled out because the poison ate through her jugular. They were told the Radium was safe despite there being known health risks as early as 1901. There were still radium factories being operated as of 1978.

    polkadotprincess2317 , wikipedia.org Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Dark but well written: https://www.kate-moore.com/the-radium-girls Give it a read if you want to know more about this tragedy.

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    #5

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults When then President of Indonesia Soekarno visited the Soviet Union the KGB thought that it would be a good idea to send a honey trap. They hired two escorts to "entertain" him and recorded the acts using a spy camera. then blackmailed President Soekarno laughed at the agents and asked them to send him the tapes so that he can watch it back home.

    ilhamalfatihah16 , wikipedia.org Report

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    #6

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, apparently lost her virginity on her mother’s grave.

    DudebroggieHouser:

    Mary Shelly and Lord Byron put all modern goth couples to absolute shame.

    Maleficent_Nobody_75 , Brett Sayles Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And that's not even the wildest part of her biography, read the Wiki article it's full of WTH moments)

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    At the time of writing, according to the ‘Worldometer,’ nearly 8.2 billion people live on Earth. Or almost 8.173 billion, to be more precise.

    The United Nations predicts that we should have 9 billion people living on the planet by the year 2037. Furthermore, the world population should balloon up to 10 billion by 2060. Of course, these projections can and will change. Predicting the future is always difficult. No matter how much data you have, no statistical model can account for every eventuality or circumstance.

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    #7

    Gandhi was racist and kind of a p*do. While people say he “outgrew his racism” he unquestionably slept naked in the same bed as naked teenagers, one being his grandniece to “test himself” which even if all he did was sleep is still incredibly unsettling. I detest the British colonialism as much as the next guy but it seems Gandhi is only ever remembered for the good things he did and not the extremely morally questionable things.

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    #8

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The absolute atrocities that Japan committed during World War II not only the decimation of the Chinese people but also on their own turf.

    Examples being the horrific stuff done at Unit 731 s**t should give you nightmares.

    HeadFit2660 , wikipedia.org Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I wonder how many more of these horrors exist without ever having been uncovered. I mean, we only know about what happened in Japan and Germany because these two lost the wars and were in public focus.

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    #9

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The reason informed consent is legally required in study participation, The Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

    In 1932 a group of 600 impoverished Black men were part of an experiment to observe untreated syphilis. 399 of these men had syphilis while the rest were used as a control group, all participating with the promise of free medical care. The men who had syphilis were never told they had it. Instead they were gaslit and offered placebos to treat "bad blood" while the researchers told local Black doctors to deny them treatment.

    It was supposed to last 6 months.
    It lasted 40 years, and even though penicillin was used as an effective treatment 15 years after the start of the study, it was never offered to them.

    During WWII 256 infected men were drafted and diagnosed by the military, unfit to serve without treatment. The researchers got them excluded from the draft to continue the experiment unbothered.

    It only stopped after news of the study was leaked to the press in 1972. 128 of the men had died directly or indirectly from a completely treatable disease they were never told they had, and 59 relatives of the men contracted or were born with syphilis as a result.

    TrashAvalon , National Archives Atlanta, GA (U.S. government) Report

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    jenwil avatar
    Snazzy Smurf
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The movie Miss Evers' Boys is based off of this topic. Experiments were conducted more than people know. Many pioneering gyn surgeries were performed on those that could not resist or run away.

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    Estimating how many people have ever lived on Earth over humanity’s roughly 200,000-year history is a tough nut to crack. Being too specific is never going to work because we lack the records, so we have to make educated guesses. A 2022 article on PRB estimates that around 117 billion members of our species have been born on our planet.

    There were around 8 billion human beings living on the planet in 2022, which accounted for around 7% of the total number of people who have ever lived. This is a huge chunk of the total historical human population! And every person who has ever been born has added to the rich tapestry of history, one way or another.
    #10

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The Olsen twins countdown clock. You had grown men obsessing about this.

    Slow_D-oh:

    Same with:
    Emma Watson
    Britney Spears (who was asked repeatedly if she was still a virgin when underage.)
    Anna Kournikova
    and likely any popular female singer/actor who was over 15 in the 90s (at least) until very recently.
    Also, just because I don't like the guy. Jerry Seinfeld had a 17-year-old girlfriend when he was 38.

    drfunkenstien014 , Warner Bros. Report

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    Kira Okah
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That actor in Twilight was thirsted over when he was fifteen by the "Twi-Moms". People have written ewwy stories of the children in Stranger Things. RPF exists of male child actors paired with their best friend and was sent to them. This vile is still current.

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    Roan The Demon Kitty
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    still happens now, I remember seeing posts about Millie Bobby Brown and being absolutely disgusted. And whilst Jenna Ortega is of age now, she quit a lot of her social media due to grown men sending her explicit imagery/deepfakes of her as a child/teen.

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    Rafael
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I read the caption on the main page, and here I was thinking that they had some sort of publicity stunt on their show involving a mystery countdown, and some misaimed fandom (much like "bronies") all had wild theories and heated flame wars about what it could be. Reality was so, so much worse. I'm sticking with my initial idea, will pretend it is true. I will feel better.

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    Premium     2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Many of these countdown clocks were on Reddit... gross

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    Mental Liberals
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Hollyweird, politicians, businessman, all the elitists...trafficking is alive and well and $$$ keeps it going.

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    2 months ago

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    #11

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults We would have more mummies nowadays if the victorians didn’t eat them all.

    Helpful_Finding78 , Narciso Arellano Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "Unwrapping parties", using them as a medicine, mixing them into paint ("Mummy Brown" was the fad of the day in the art world)... Some expeditions in Egypt are even said to have used them as fuel for campfires, as they did burn well because of their bitumen content.

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    #12

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Baby farmers.

    In Victorian (and previously one assumes) unmarried mothers were of course looked down upon and if you were in service and knocked up by the son of the owner you were a bit f****d as no-one else would give a single mother a job. The solution? Baby Farmers!

    Baby farmers were basically an industry to “adopt” (for a fee of course) these babies. Of course, some of these farmers realised that it was somewhat noisy and expensive looking after a whole bunch of babies and so they used a tonic called Godfrey’s Cordial. Said tonic contained opium which knocked out the babies and they were fed it by a few unscrupulous baby farmers until they starved to death. They then disposed of baby, advertised again and the cycle begins again.

    For a particularly notorious example look up Amelia Dyer or John and Sarah Makin.

    Littleleicesterfoxy , Pixabay Report

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    Huddo's sister
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I remember reading a really interesting book about this when I was about 14. It was fiction, but included all the facts mentioned about them.

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    #13

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Victor Hugo was so popular with Parisian pr*stitutes that most brothels in Paris closed down for a day of mourning and many SWs stood outside to pay tribute.

    mike28987 , Étienne Carjat Report

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    2 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yeah umm… not sure this belongs in ‘dark’ history? ‘Tis the oldest profession after all, and for a reason. I.e. Why are we all here…? ‘Cause people were doin’ it.

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    #14

    Winston Churchill's entire career outside of WW2 was basically monstrous. He had concentration camps in South Africa, was a eugenicist, and used ex-military police to crack down on the anti-colonial movement in Ireland.

    Say what you want about the guy, he obviously has a major role in WW2, but he was basically just a coin flip away from being a British fascist.

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Starvation to death of India "to fund" WW2 was his doing.

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    #15

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults In 1944, 9 American airmen were shot down over the Japanese island Chichijima in the Bonin Islands. 8 were captured by Japanese troops, and were then beaten, tortured, and executed by beheading. Their remains were cannibalized by Japanese officers. The ritual cannibalism included eating the livers of freshly killed prisoners, and eating living prisoners over several days, amputating limbs to keep the meat fresh.

    This case was investigated in 1947 in a war crimes trial, and of the 30 Japanese soldiers prosecuted, four officers were found guilty and hanged. All enlisted men were released within eight years.

    Vice Admiral Mori Kunizo, commander of the Chichi-Jima air base believed hat consumption of human liver had medical benefits. He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the incident, but was sentenced to death and hanged after a separate trial for other war crimes.

    The 9th airman who successfully evaded capture was eventually rescued. 45 years later he was elected President of the United States.

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The guy who survived who went on to be president was George Bush.

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    #16

    In Ancient Pompeii, the way they would direct you towards the nearest brothel was with a d**k engraved into the pavement and walls pointing the way towards it.

    The engravings survived the volcanic eruption, so if you go to Pompeii today you will find the paths literally paved with d***s.

    danylp:

    When I was there we stopped by a group led by a guide lady at the exact moment she showed them the carvings and asked them what they thought it was. Everyone said some mild things like "leaf", "boat" etc. and I was like "That definitely looks like a penis!" and the lady turned to me: "Yes, exactly, thank you!". It was fun.

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Everybody seems to wonder why in Pompeji there is an abundance of phalli and erotic images, while rome and similar cities do have much less of those. The reason is quite simple: The pendulum swang back in later times to some kind of nearly victorian prudishness. The erotical imagery and all those markers simly were erased - but at that time, Pompeji already was under a few feet of sooth, so it did not get the same cleanup.

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    #17

    The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin was founded in 1919 and was the first of it's kind to research trans, gay and intersex individuals. It housed an enormous collection of notes and books on sexual research and was one of the first targets of the nazi bookburnings. Everyone's seen the pictures but very few people know what was actually burned.

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And now modern fascists are citing "lack of historical evidence" as a weapon against LGBTQIA. You know, the evidence that their predecessors burned. Pure unadulterated (cl)a*s right there.

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    #18

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults King Ferdinand I, or Ferrante, of Naples kept a so called black museum of the mummified remains of his personal and political enemies. He had them dressed and arranged in various scenes and would often show off the museum to potential rivals/enemies he hadn’t yet killed off. So yeah, pretty messed up.

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    iseefractals
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We should bring this back for murders and pedo's. No jail, no "treatment" just straight to the mummy museum

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    #19

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Charlie Chaplin impregnated a 15-year-old girl when he was 35. She (Lita Grey) was 8 when he met her.

    Roronoa_Zaraki , P.D Jankens Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's interesting to me how some people are getting hung up on "it was a different time", or some legal "age of consent" nonsense. This was a full-grown adult man who impregnated a CHILD. I don't give two $hits about it being a different time or age of consent. It's wrong, no matter when or where it happens.

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    #20

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults A couple of NASA interns several years ago stole a huge number of moonrocks brought back during the Apollo missions, spread them out on a motel bed and had s*x on them, just so they could say they’d had s*x on the Moon.

    Melodic_692 , SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS Report

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    #21

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults They didn't start using anesthesia on babies until the late 1980s. It wasn't until 1987 that the American Academy of Pediactrics declared it unethical to operate on infants without the use of anesthesia. Mother's were doing everything to convince doctors that their babies could feel pain, but since the doctors said they would have no long-term memory at that point, then it wasn't as important. That's not very long ago!

    From wiki-, "In the late nineteenth, and first half of the twentieth century[citation needed], doctors were taught that babies did not experience pain and were treating their young patients accordingly. From needle sticks to tonsillectomies to heart operations were done with no anaesthesia or analgesia, other than muscle relaxation for the surgery.[citation needed] The belief was that in babies the expression of pain was reflexive and, owing to the immaturity of the infant brain, the pain could not really matter."
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies.

    Winter_Ad_7424 , Anna Shvets Report

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    Stephanie Did It
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Can confirm this. In 1982, neonatal doctors performed a surgical procedure on my newborn premature son and tossed my frantic protests aside with "Oh, he'll never remember it." Two years later when he fell and broke his two front teeth, A dentist literally dug them out of his gums with the exact same statement as he was forcibly held down.

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    #22

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults My all time favorite - it seems there was some super important Chinese empress who made emissaries and foreign dignataries go down on her at least partly as a sign of dominance.

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    This comment has been deleted.

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    #23

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Shakespeare was not some high-brow fancy cultural icon. He was the trash Hollywood movies of his time. People would go to the theatres to get p**s drunk, yell at actors and solicit women who were advertising themselves in the standing sections. Also, the content of his plays (and poems but that’s not my focal point here) were not rated E for everyone lol I actually can’t believe some of the plays that are taught in school. Sure, it’s easy to miss all the sex and penis jokes if you’re just reading it but a good actor will find them and play them out.

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If his plays survived for centuries, then they must have been better than mere trash, whatever the theater-going crowd's habits were at the time.

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    #24

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The inventor of the polygraph also created Wonder Woman, who was based on his wife and the college student the two of them had a polyamorous relationship with.

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    alexruddies avatar
    Alex Ruddies
    Alex Ruddies
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This doesn't sound dark...just a really open relationship at a time that when it was looked down upon. I think worst thing was the polygraph in this part. Unless there's something I'm missing.

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    #25

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The Romans f****d a natural birth control into extinction

    I forget the details, but essentially there was an herb on some me Greek island that acted as a natural birth control. The Romans proceeded to f**k so often that said plant no longer exists.

    JohnCavil01:

    Silphium - while its effectiveness and even use as a contraceptive is debated it’s possibly been rediscovered and may in fact just had its name/identity drift overtime and has been hiding in plain sight.

    geofflechef , rockerBOO Report

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    daniellekeogh avatar
    Dani
    Dani
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I had not heard the updated part of this, pretty cool it may not be extinct.

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    #26

    In ancient Greece, athletes used to compete in the Olympics completely naked. Imagine training your whole life, only to have your legacy reduced to 'the guy who dropped the javelin… and everything else...

    m50d:

    Pole vaulting incidents like this year's would've been more common.

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    troufaki13
    troufaki13
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Gymnasium comes from the greek word for naked. Gymnos or γυμνός in Greek.

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    #27

    Queen Victoria spent quiet a lot of time writing about her sex life with Prince Albert in great detail. She was also known for being unnecessarily cruel to her daughters and actually survived at least 8 known assassination attempts.

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    fredneobob90 avatar
    Huddo's sister
    Huddo's sister
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Some of that is due to generational trauma. Her mother isolated her as a young child and was extremely strict. She installed a tutor who had the same ideals and they treated her like a six year old basically until she became queen. They wanted the power they knew she would one day get.

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    #28

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The inventor of the autopilot crashed his plane while attempting to join the Mile High Club.

    _Sammy7_ , wikipedia.org Report

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    hakanfremin avatar
    HF
    HF
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    that's why you should not try to have sex with the autopilot. At least not while it's working.

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    #29

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The Dutch ate their prime minister.

    BGrunn , Artus Quellinus Report

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    #30

    Mozart. Loved. Farts and poop jokes. Loved 'em. Read some of his weird letters he sent to friends that were just filled with poop and fart jokes.

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    JoNo
    JoNo
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    While not historically accurate, the movie "Amadeus" shows how he loved fart and poop jokes.

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    #31

    Raphael, the Renaissance painter the Ninja Turtle is named after, died after having s*x with his mistress for an entire day without stopping.

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    #32

    *TLDR: There were three wars and thousands of dead in Spain in the nineteenth century by three different people called Carlos because my man Fernando VII couldn't get his gigantic footlong penis up*

    In the 19th century in Spain the king Fernando VII (who was an absolute a*****e but that's another story) had an approximately 30cm sized penis. That's about a foot. My dude couldn't get it up, and when he did the monster would scare his wives (he had 4, they just kept dying apparently).

    At some point some doctor invented the Royal Donut™, basically a rounded pillow with a hole in the middle so he could *do the deed* more comfortably without destroying his wives' insides. And he was able to have two kids! Unfortunately they were two women, and by law in Spain it wasn't allowed for women to rule.

    The guy ended up dying in 1833, but before his desth he passed a law stating that, actually, women WERE able to rule and her kid Isabel II would be crowned queen (a few years later, she was like 2 at the time).

    His brother Carlos wasn't too keen on letting Fernando's daughter reign so he started a war with his absolutist supporters, but after six years they ended up losing. The thing is, even after losing the war, his family held onto the claim to the throne and there were two more wars years down the line (started by his son and his grandson, both also named Carlos). They were called Guerras Carlistas (Carlist Wars).

    The faction of the Carlistas kept being influential into the 20th century and fought along Franco in the Civil War in 1936 holding most of the front in the north of Spain in the earlier stages. They ended up fusing into Franco's party when the dictatorship got established.

    So what ended up happening is that because of some guy's gigantic penis thousands died but women can now rule in Spain, and the current heir to the throne is actually a woman.

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    #33

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults James Joyce had quite the fart fetish and immortalised it in some very dirty letters to his wife Nora. I don't remember much at all of Ulysses from school but God do I remember the letters.

    brokkenbricks , wikipedia.org Report

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    nagoj91802 avatar
    Kangaroo
    Kangaroo
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    A real excerpt from one of his letters (one of the more appropriate examples): “I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.”

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    #34

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Nipple ring fad in Victorian England.

    costabius:

    Also, intimate (and non-intimate) tattoos were all the rage among the upper classes of England including Albert and Victoria.

    Biggie_Cheese69-2 , George W. Joy Report

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    eds2 avatar
    Doctor Strange
    Doctor Strange
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Agnes Sorel had her dress tailored to show off her favorite boob.

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    #35

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The pope who had a secret room with frescoes of his lovers as the Virgin Mary. I remember taking a class on religious history for a history credit in college and briefly reading about it.

    DireNell , Pedro Berruguete - gallerix.org Report

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    #36

    Marie Duplessis, famous French courtesan who was the inspiration for Marguerite/Camille from La Dame aux Camélias, always wore camelias, usually a white one but a red one when it was her time of the month. She died age 23 of tuberculosis.

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    Pyla
    Pyla
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in. - Edward Gorey

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    #37

    Operation Midnight Climax

    It was a cia program in the mid 50s that used pr*stitutes to lure unsuspecting men to apartments in New York and San Francisco to d**g them with LSD to test whether the combination of s*x and LSD might influence the men to reveal information the government wanted.

    RANDY_MAR5H:

    Yeah they picked these people on the "fringes" of society because they knew they wouldn't be going to the police, and if they did, perhaps no one would believe them anyway.

    tom2091 Report

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    #38

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults P**s poor came from people selling their p**s to tanneries so they could afford to buy food and basic necessities. If you "didn't have a pot to p**s in" you were even worse off.

    blacktieandgloves:

    In Ancient Rome there was a tax on the trade in urine. It's where the phrase "money doesn't stink" (pecunia non olet) comes from, meaning that no matter its source, money is still money.

    S4ABCS , Giorgio Trovato Report

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    Kira Okah
    Kira Okah
    Community Member
    2 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The first origin is an urban legend; the "pish" is an emphasiser, in the same use as the word "very", it's just British slang from the 1930s/40s. The second means that you are skint, and has zero relation to the first, just more British slang.

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    #39

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults The Byzantine Iconoclasts in the Mid 720's carried out massive pogroms targeting churches and monasteries that openly displayed icons of Christ and the Saints.

    One thing the Iconoclasts were fond of doing was rounding up all of the Eastern Orthodox Nuns and Monks they could find and forcing them into the chariot racing stadiums.  Once there, the Iconoclasts forced the Nuns and Monks to marry each other in violation of their vows and then consummate the marriage.

    In the middle of a stadium.

    With 10,000 people watching.

    Talk about performance anxiety.

    KreedKafer33 , wikipedia.org Report

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    yakovmeerson avatar
    Moos
    Moos
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There are doubts about the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Iconoclasm

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    #40

    The Newport Sex Scandal.

    The Navy heard that there was a common spot where enlisted and civilian men who have sex with men would go for hookups or relationships. To investigate, they sent enlisted personnel to gather intelligence, which resulted in them soliciting sex and participating in the same "immoral acts" that they were trying to criminalize. This led to embarrassment for the Navy, local clergy (many of whom had been discovered engaging in homosexual behavior during the investigation), and political fallout for those in charge of the investigation.


    "Hey, we need to figure out if enlisted men are trying to have sex with each other at the Army and Navy YMCA."

    "Got it, well lets send some enlisted men to the Army and Navy YMCA to try to have sex with other men, and we'll keep track of who goes for it".

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    ferrybloemendal avatar
    Oerff On Tour
    Oerff On Tour
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And, because they were undercover and didn't know who the others were, those undercover enlisted men probably had sex with each other.... Reminds me of a drụgbust sting operation where police-narcs posed as dealers, and fbi-narcs as the buyers.

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    #41

    The only female emperor/sovereign of China, Wu Zetian carved her p*ssy onto a mountain.

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    #42

    Andrew Jackson beat the brains out of multiple men while in office.

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    Upstaged75
    Upstaged75
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There's a musical about him called Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

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    #43

    After Martin Luther officially rejected Catholicism’s requirement for celibacy among the clergy, he got married to a former nun. In those days, German tradition had it that the best man had to witness the consummation of the marriage that made it official, so his first sexual encounter with his wife was witnessed in his bedchamber by his best man.

    Marriages could be annulled (canceled) after the wedding if the couple hadn’t consummated the marriage with sex, but could not be annulled after consummation, so having someone witness the consummation was a sort of assurance that they made it official and final. Remember that in those days, the Catholic Church did not permit divorce. The nearest thing there was to divorce was annulment of unconsummated marriages.

    **EDIT**: I missed several conditions that also permitted annulment, such as the marriage being found to be incestuous, and other conditions. Annulment wasn’t divorce, as much as it was a declaration that the marriage didn’t count or wasn’t valid in one way or another.

    King Henry VIII of England was so upset that the Catholic church wouldn’t let him divorce that he split the Church of England from the Catholic Church in order to permit himself to get a divorce.

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    acey-ace16 avatar
    Ace
    Ace
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Actually Henry was also trying to get an annulement, not a divorce, on the grounds that it was against god's will and that she'd previously been married to his brother. It's often referred to as a divorce, but was not.

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    #44

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Mental health issues, PMS hormonal changes, or pretty much anything that made a women less demure and compliant used to be diagnosed as Hysteria, and was treated with Orgasms. These were administered by the doctor, but their hands got tired, thus the Vibrator was born.

    Carinne89 , Andrea Piacquadio Report

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    Kira Okah
    Kira Okah
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Urban legend again. Doctors were not bean flicking female patients as treatment.

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    #45

    People often forget about the *Bonobo sex studies* that emerged in the 20th century. Bonobos, one of our closest primate relatives, use sex not just for reproduction but as a way to resolve conflicts, bond, and even trade favors. The findings were pretty shocking at the time because they challenged a lot of human assumptions about sexuality and social behavior. It’s a wild reminder of just how complex and diverse sexual behavior can be, even in nature!

    chiix_sexxyy Report

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    laura lee
    laura lee
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Bonobos are the only species of animals, us included, that does NOT kill their own. The ONLY.

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    #46

    Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key) was murdered in broad daylight by Congressman Dan Sickles. Sickles had learned that Key was having an affair with his wife. The ensuing trial was a sensation, and Sickles became the first person in the US acquitted based on a temporary insanity defense.

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    davidh_1 avatar
    David
    David
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And his lawyer would later serve on the Supreme Court and was an oddball himself, Edwin Stanton, a legend in legal history who invented a lot of modern day court tactics

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    #47

    The bombing of Dresden in WWII. Everyone remembers the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its a constant debate of whether it needed to happen. Dresden isn't a debate, it full on did not need to happen. The allies dropped so many bombs that it sucked the oxygen out of the city and created a fire tornado. People were melting in the street, into the street. It got so hot the asphalt become sludge and when people would run out of their houses, they'd get stuck in the pavement which is now hot tar essentially. The reason why the allies bombed it? Because the city had railway connections that would hurt the Nazis. No military base, no weapons manufacturing , nothing. Just a railway system. It was also 1945 at the tail end of the war. France and England had been taken back and Russia was already well into Germany. Between 25,000 to 35,000 civilians died.

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    scrapiechick avatar
    Scrappychick
    Scrappychick
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    England wasn't taken in WWII, so how could it have been taken back?

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    #48

    Idk how NSFW this is, but the reason the azthecs sacrificed humans was bc that gave the sun energy to run away from the moon and stars who wanted to murder him and envelop the whole world into darkness.

    Somehow nobody ever metions this.

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    Kira Okah
    Kira Okah
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I knew this, it was pretty openly stated in my Aztec book. Along with the cutting off the sacrifice's skin and wearing it while eating the victim.

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    #49

    Tipper Gore wanted to put a Parental Advisory sticker on Twisted Sister’s album, because of her own dirty mind. She thought “Under the Blade” was about masochism and bondage.

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    Slapdash1
    Slapdash1
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The congressional hearings that follow were epic. Frank Zappa and John freaking Denver defended rock music and then Dee Snyder basically made a fool of her in front of everyone. It's on youtube and well worth the watch.

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    #50

    Mozart wrote a song called "lick me in the a*s".

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    Nicoletta Cattalani
    Nicoletta Cattalani
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Not a German speaker, but if i'm not mistaken, it should be the equivalent of "f**k off"

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    #51

    "The Fappening"- Celebrity Nudes Leak of 2014.

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    David
    David
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    LOL just saw there are still web sites dedicated to it. I vaguely remember hearing about it but didn't look into it at the time. Didn't really care then or now.

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    #52

    Catherine the Great supposedly had a secret room full of sexually explicit furniture. Chairs and tables with devils and penises carved in the legs and arm rests. I think one specific table had legs that were penises ejaculating that held the main part of the table as they ejaculate.

    This has never been 100% confirmed so it still falls under "Urban legend" Originating in the 50s, apparently form the soviets.

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    Rizzo
    Rizzo
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Men told many lies about powerful women in the past. As always, it was mostly their twisted fantasy.

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    #53

    30 Terrifying And Weird History Facts You Might Not Know, Meant For Adults Nintendo had s*x hotels at one point.

    Mcfeyxtrillion , Samuel Berner Report

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