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42 Historical Facts Which Appear To Be Too Bizarre To Be True Yet They Are, As Told By Folks In This Online Thread
Of all the sciences created by humankind, history is probably the most flexible and ambiguous. As you may know, history is written by the winners, and you are unlikely to have any doubts that if, say, the South won the Civil War, today we would study from slightly different history textbooks. Yes, and "Gone with the Wind" would hardly have been written, let alone filmed.
And yet, even with all the relativity of historical assessments of different events, there are facts which, upon hearing them for the first time, we will definitely say "You cannot be serious!" However, any more or less careful fact-checking will confirm that this is indeed the case. History - you know, she's a very capricious old lady.
A few weeks ago, a new thread appeared in the AskReddit community, the topic starter of which asked people "What is a historical fact that seems unbelievable?" As of today, the thread has over 700 upvotes and almost a thousand and a half comments as well, containing both obvious fakes and really incredible but true things - as well as fierce disputes over how to separate the first from the second.
Bored Panda has carefully done everything ourselves. First, we thoroughly went through the original thread, selected the most popular and incredible facts and stories told in the comments, and then just as carefully and meticulously checked each fact apiece. If at least some doubt arose, the fact was mercilessly sent to the wastebin.
So now, meet our selection of the most incredible, but 100% true random and not only historical things. Please feel free to scroll to the very end and, of course, add some similar facts you know - but fact checking is definitely a must! Just have a good and amazing read!
More info: Reddit
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#1
If we held a minute of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, the world would be silent for 11.5 years. It’s crazy to visualize the mass amount of human loss from this event.
Stardust she/her 1 year ago
Every victim was their own person with their own story which ended long before it should’ve. So many stories and chapters of life were gone. So many children lost their chance of living a childhood, so many people never got the chance to better themselves, so many love stories ended, so many things could’ve potentially happened which never did. Once you stop seeing things as statistics and instead focus on the emotions, it becomes terrifying and tragic
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#2
Ancient Thebes once assembled an elite military force consisting of 150 pairs of gay male lovers. They were believed to fight better because they wouldn't want to act cowardly or unmanly in front of their boyfriends. They went undefeated in war for years.
#3
Elizabeth II was on the throne for over a quarter of the United States' existence.
#4
There were archaeologists in *Ancient* Egypt studying about *even more* ancient Egypt.
RoanTheMad 1 year ago
To put this into context: There was more than a thousand years between the Pyramids being built (around 2630 BC) and Tutankhamun being Pharaoh. (1332 BC) and another more than a thousand until Cleopatra ruled Egypt (51 to 30 BC) which means Cleopatra was alive around 2050 years ago. meaning as of 2023 she lived closer to our modern time than she did to the pyramids being built.
#5
Read about this a few years ago:
In 1943 a group of German sailors on a U-Boat emplaced a weather station on the Canadian coast (Labrador) so the Germans could more accurately predict the weather for military operations (since weather in the Northern hemisphere generally moves west-to-east.) The weather station was marked with fake signs indicating that it was a Canadian military facility and for unauthorized personnel to keep out.
The weather station was eventually discovered by the Canadians....
...In 1977.
#6
The first battle of the American Civil War was fought on land owned by a Mr. Wilmer McLean. After the battle he decided to move further out in the country to avoid the war...where four years later Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant in Mr. McLeans house. The war started and ended on his property.
Paulo Freitas 1 year ago (edited)
I raise you One better, ( i dunno the dates by head now, neither the name of the gentleman in question, but any of you interested can Google him ) there was a Japanese gentleman that was in Hiroshima when the Americans droped the 1st Atomic bomb, the man in question survived and decided to go to his family house in..... Nagasaki lol, and Guess what, he survived again, its the only man on the Guiness book of world records to have survived 2 Atomic bombs.
#7
University of Oxford is older than the Aztec Empire.
Headless Roach 1 year ago
The yoghurt in Nathaniel's fridge is older than the Aztec Empire, too. 🤎
#8
We live closer in time to TRex than TRex did to Stegosaurus. Dinosaurs were here forever.
#9
King George III known as the ‘Mad King’ apparently suffered severe mental illness the majority of his life. He was tied to chairs, gagged, bled, left in freezing rooms to try and ‘treat’ him.
In 2005, DNA testing on his hair found extremely high levels of lead and arsenic. Medications he was being given for other ailments sent him insane for a slow likely painful death
#10
The entire country of Malta was awarded the George Cross for its efforts in WWII. It's still on their flag.
#11
The rings of Saturn are younger than Stegosauruses.
Stegosauruses roamed the earth ~150-180 million years ago. Saturn's rings have only existed for ~100 million years.
#12
Bobby Leach was the second person to ever go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He survived, but his injuries kept him hospitalized for six months.
He died 15 years later from injuries sustained after he slipped on an orange peel.
#13
The first 200 000 years or so of being highly sentient human beings are lost in history. We only know the last circa 2000-4000 years from texts.
The first recorded joke - a fart joke that is 4000 years old - uses the term "since time immemorial" (or the sumerian version). Even though one should not take that literally, it suggests that you could travel back in time to find people consider their civilization ancient already.
And it was. When that joke was written down in cuneiform, the pyramid of Djoser had already been standing for 700 years. And when **that** pyramid was built, the city of Catal Höyuk was 3000-5000 years old!
And still, that was built during *the latest 2.5% of human history*.
We have lost so goddam much that it hurts to think of it.
#14
Sharks have been on earth far longer than trees. The first sharks arose over 100 million years before the first tree.
TotallyNOTaFox 1 year ago
So they appeared around the time Saturn got it's rings... Coincidence, I THINK NOT!
#15
There are funguses that cover entire forest floors that work like a neural network, for both themselves and the trees. If the fungus is say, ingured by a dog on one end, trees on the other end will increase their bark for additional protection.
#16
The head of German military intelligence during WW2 was providing the Allies with intel.
Onion Cutting Ninja 1 year ago
Thank goodness for people like this who had incredible courage during this terrible war.
#17
Between the 16th and 18th century, slave ships from Africa raided the Mediterranean and enslaved up to a million people. Sometimes entire islands were captured and taken away. Raids were made on seaside towns of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England, the Netherlands and as far away as Iceland, capturing men, women and children. It was so bad that people stopped living on long stretches of coast in Spain and Italy.
#18
Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt went for a swim in the ocean and just disappeared. To honour him we now have the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre.
#19
In 90 years from 1841 to 1930 Ireland's population halved, from 8.4 million to about 4 million. The Famine started the decline, but emigration sustained it - Ireland's population didn't start growing again until the 1960s, and there are still about 2 million fewer people living there (Eire and NI) than in 1841.
werewolf394 1 year ago
This is why there are so many Americans who claim to be of Irish descent - because Ireland was so badly affected by the famine that millions left the country. My grandmother on my mother's side and my great-grandmother on my father's side both left Ireland years ago.
#21
The great wall of China has existed longer than Christianity
#22
Carrots don't improve eyesight, that's World War Two propaganda made up by the British to cover up the existence of radar
Jill Bussey 1 year ago
If your diet is deficient in Vitamin A, then yes, eating carrots will help. But it's a fine line. The misunderstanding may also arise because there is a source of Vitamin A called carotene.
#23
Joe Biden was born closer to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination than he was his own inauguration.
LizzieBoredom 1 year ago
Joe Biden was born 5 years after Amelia Earhart went missing so he's in the clear.
#24
It took 60 million years for nature to develop bacteria that could digest trees. In fact that is where coal comes from
Pedantic Panda 1 year ago
This seems badly worded to me. The fact is that 300 million years ago, the bacteria and fungi that today help break down dead trees, didn't exist. As a result, dead trees didn't decompose but became coal due to being buried and exposed to millions of years of heat and pressure.
#25
That there was a molasses flood in Boston in 1919 that was 25 feet high and killed 21 people.
Jeff Gabrisl 1 year ago
I remember reading about beer flood in England when a fermentation tank burst. People died from alcohol poisoning. I'm not sure if it's true, but it always makes me think of this joke: Kelly Fitzgerald was late getting home from his job at the brewery one night and his wife was worried. He was supposed to be home at 5pm, and it was 9pm when she heard a knock at the door . When she opened the door it was the brewery owner. The owner said " Kelly had an accident at work, he fell into one of the fermentation vats, and now he is at St Peter's gate, I'm so sorry" His wife cried and said: "I hope he didn't die in pain" The owner replied: "I doubt it, he got out 4 times to take a p**s"
#26
There was a convent of French nuns that just began meowing one day for no particular reason.
#27
The last execution by guillotine was in the 70s
David 1 year ago
I feel like method of execution is determined more for the sensitivity of the people not being executed. Guillotine supposed to be 'barbaric' but in reality is probably painless or close to. Quick - catastrophic - fatal. Body goes into shock (I assume) and dead before it figures out what happened. I kind of don't get the current problems with injections. Just put them under like for an operation - then take them deeper. I've had my intestines removed from my body (temporarily of course) and never felt a thing. Not speaking in favor of execution. Just saying the modern methods seem weird to me.
Markus Holstein 1 year ago
Their problem is that many drug companies refuse to deliver medications that are to be used in executions, so states that practice death penalty have to work with what they can get their hands on and resort to increasingly weird cocktails of medications
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Matias Marczak 1 year ago
Barbaric to watch, but unexpectedly humane to be in. It's the consensus today that the person will feel nothing. As for lethal injection, it is really peaceful to watch, but can be really bad to be in, if done in a sloppy way, as it is way more often than it should. We are not even absolutely sure on how full anesthesia works for Crist sake, the human body is not that simple, so maybe the guillotine is a good thing. Or just stop killing people, and build a good system of punishment and rehabilitation without resentment, that would work too.
Annik Perrot 1 year ago
Death penalty was only abolished in France in 1981, when Socialist François Mitterrand was elected as President. Until then, guillotine was the legal means of execution. Horrible way, certainly... but is there an acceptable one?
CGZ 1 year ago
The only horrible part is the time leading up to the act. The part about removing your head from your body is easy. That goes for every other common method of execution as well.
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Robert Trebor 1 year ago
Interestingly enough, the blade is tapered, not sharpened. The weight of it was enough to do the job.
Luna Crow 1 year ago
Yes, the oligarchs have gotten quite uppity since then, might be time to bring it back..
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gerard julien 1 year ago
"The use of beheading machines in Europe long predates such use during the French Revolution in 1792. The Halifax Gibbet : was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Estimated to have been installed during the 16th century, it was used as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. The Maiden : is an early form of guillotine, or gibbet, that was used between the 16th and 18th centuries as a means of execution in Edinburgh, Scotland. The device was introduced in 1564 during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, and was last used in 1716. It long predates the use of the guillotine during the French Revolution."
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gerard julien 1 year ago
"The European Convention on Human Rights was adopted in 1950, but some countries took many years to ratify it. The United Kingdom retained the death penalty for high treason until 1998. Capital punishment has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia. In 2012, Latvia became the last EU member state to abolish capital punishment in wartime. Except for Belarus, which, most recently, carried out one execution in 2021, the last execution occurred in Ukraine in 1997. The European Union has long since been opposed to the death penalty, supporting the European Convention, and its 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights included an absolute ban on the death penalty in all circumstances. The Charter has been made legally binding by the Treaty of Lisbon as it was fully ratified and became effective on 1 December 2009."
gerard julien 1 year ago
"The primary means of execution in the U.S. have been hanging, electrocution, the gas chamber, firing squad, and lethal injection. The Supreme Court has never found a method of execution to be unconstitutional, though some methods have been declared unconstitutional by state courts". SOURCE : DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER
gerard julien 1 year ago
for those who think the guillotine was barbaric READ ! : " Mary, Queen of Scots : Mary was not beheaded with a single strike. The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head. The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew, which the executioner cut through using the axe. Afterwards, he held her head aloft and declared "God save the Queen." mary-63df7...c9a224.jpg 
gerard julien 1 year ago
"The use of beheading machines in Europe long predates such use during the French Revolution in 1792. The Halifax Gibbet : was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Estimated to have been installed during the 16th century, it was used as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. The Maiden : is an early form of guillotine, or gibbet, that was used between the 16th and 18th centuries as a means of execution in Edinburgh, Scotland. The device was introduced in 1564 during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, and was last used in 1716. It long predates the use of the guillotine during the French Revolution."
Deborah Rubin 1 year ago
That is almost more mind-boggling than almost any other item here. Mostly because of how old I was at that time.
Elspeth Marple 1 year ago
Not for much longer, the American government is bringing it back. It was signed into law in 1994.
CGZ 1 year ago
"The last execution by guillotine was in the 70s." Ok. What's your point? Are you surprised that it went on that long or that they decided to stop doing it that way? Guillotine, electric chair, poison pill, firing squad.
Layna Andersen 1 year ago
I’m surprised France had the death penalty so long - until 1981!
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#28
The last "official" civil war widow died in 2020.
#29
It’s estimated between 70-85 million people died in WW2. It’s been estimated 300-500 million people died of smallpox in the 20th century alone.
Apatheist Account2 1 year ago
You know what stopped smallpox? A vaccine. Some people are fortunate to be alive and have the choice not to take them.
#30
The Universe is unfathomably young at 13.8 billion years old. Humanity is actually very early to the party and there is a good chance we may be one of the first intelligent life forms in the universe if not the first. This chance increases if we find Red Dwarves with habitable planets because unlike Sol, Red Dwarves will last up to 10 trillion years.
On a Universal scale we are right at the birth of our Universe and it could be why we have yet to find evidence of other intelligent life, outside of just sheer size.
#31
Human spaceflight, laptop computers and mobile phones all pre-date the creation of the vertically aligned roll-aboard suitcase.
#33
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the iPhone than the construction of the pyramids.
#34
President Teddy Roosevelt was shot at point blank and gave his hour plus long speech.
#35
The last known pneumonic plague outbreak in the United States happened in 1924 in Los Angeles. It was limited to a small area, hence why it was classed as an outbreak. It was thought to be either an STI, due to the patient zero complaining about a fever and a sore groin.
What happened was patient zero was cleaning out his house and found a dead rat. He dispose of it, not knowing it was infected with pneumonic plague.
However, officials soon discovered a strange increase rate of an unusual form of pneumonia. Given the field of Pathology was around, they requested blood samples and discovered the cause was Yersinia pestis.
With the information provided, measures were finally taken to deal with the outbreak, such as Rat extermination including allowing stray cats and dogs to hunt down any rat. In today's money, the cost would be around 5 to 9 million. There was also mass burning, common to control a disease outbreak.
#36
In 1972, as much as 26 feet of snow fell on small towns in Iran killing 4000 people.
#37
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day. July 4th. On the 50th Anniversary.
Michelle C 1 year ago
John Adams’ last words were, reportedly, “Thomas Jefferson still lives!” unaware that he had died hours before Adams passed.
#38
Wooly Mammoth were alive when the first Egyptian pyramids were built.
The cotton gin was a commercial failure for Eli Whitney.
During the Siege of Castle Ritter, American and German troops fought together against German SS troops.
In WW2, the Italian navy independently broke most of the major powers encryption codes, including their allies codes. They even broke the German enigma code before the British did.
Stalin knew about the American nuclear weapons before Truman.
#39
Rudy Guiliani passed the bar exam.
Kathryn Baylis 1 year ago (edited)
Back in the day when he still had ll his marbles. He’d probably use his melting hair dye to doodle d***s or something on it now. The only “bar exam” he can pass now would be him drinking everyone else under the table in an actual bar
#40
Pope Gregory IX declared war on cats.
He believed that cats were agents of devil worshippers.
Stardust she/her 1 year ago
As a result of that, felines nearly went extinct in Europe and the population of rats increased which probably led to the plague
#41
Andrew Jackson, while being president, said "John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation, I will secede your head from the rest of your body."
#42
Hitler and Stalin both lived in Vienna in 1913.
Thorsten Massow 1 year ago
And if they both had visited Freud, talking about their problems (Hitlers troubled family-history, his failed art studies, Stalins drinking father etc.) this might have changed the 20th century timeline quite a bit. Maybe an idea for an alternate history novel...
What do you think ?
Kathy 1 year ago
Quite interesting, although not as enlightening as I hoped it would be... If only my fellow pandas would keep politics out of the comments, it might even have been a pleasant read... *Sigh*...
Auntriarch 1 year ago
About to read a book about lemon growing in Italy, with recipes!
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Matias Marczak 1 year ago
Not as many Deja vus as I was thinking, maybe my memory is going bad.
Kathy 1 year ago
Quite interesting, although not as enlightening as I hoped it would be... If only my fellow pandas would keep politics out of the comments, it might even have been a pleasant read... *Sigh*...
Auntriarch 1 year ago
About to read a book about lemon growing in Italy, with recipes!
Load More Replies... Matias Marczak 1 year ago
Not as many Deja vus as I was thinking, maybe my memory is going bad.
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