30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks

Even the most well-educated of people can’t say they know everything there is to know about history; it’s an endless supply of information, fascinating stories, and curious happenings, that would take forever to familiarize oneself with.

So, while we can’t provide you with all there is to know, we can share some interesting facts, to evoke your curiosity at least. Scroll down to find some of the most fascinating little-known facts, as shared by members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community, and see for yourself just how enthralling history can be and just how much there is still left to uncover.

Below you will also find Bored Panda’s interview with an associate professor of history at Southern Utah University, Dave Lunt, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about it and all sorts of historical fun facts.

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30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks During prohibition, grape concentrate bricks called Vine-Glo were sold.

On the packaging, it included a very specific warning: "After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine.".

Cassereddit , Nacho Domínguez Argenta/Unsplash Report

Final score:

267points

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Agfox 3 months ago

"Amateurs!" - Jesus, probably

38points

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30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks During the Irish famine the Choctaw Nation from the USA sent financial aid to them and while a small amount at the time it was seen as a great gesture in return during Covid many Irish people donated money to the Navajo Nation to help them. There’s a statue in County Cork to commemorate it as well.

here is one source

and another

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Final score:

226points

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Nitka Tsar 3 months ago

I am no expert, so please enlighten me. The Choctaw Nation is not the same as the Navajo Nation, right? Is there no one left of the Choctaw Nation? Or did they not need help during covid? Why not help the Choctaw instead of the Navajo? I’m not complaing, it’s great there was help. I just want to understand

42points

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30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks The Netherlands sends Canada 20,000 tulips every year for liberating them during WW2. The Netherlands also has a cemetery dedicated to Canadian fallen troops.

Source

redman9000 , Pexels Report

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223points

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Caro Caro 3 months ago

AND hosted the Dutch royal family in exile.

89points

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Discussing the benefits of delving deeper into history, associate professor at Southern Utah University, Dave Lunt noted that there is a common cliché that we learn history in order to understand the present and the future. “As clichés go, it’s a pretty good one since the ancient Greek historian Thucydides suggested this very thing around the year 400 BCE,” he said.

“However, it’s not that history ‘repeats’ (since circumstances can never be truly identical, as Heraclitus noted when he wrote that nobody can step into the same river twice), but rather learning about history trains our minds to interpret events, to identify cause-and-effect, to anticipate ramifications and historical significance.

“Of course, there is no perfect way to predict the future, but the process of evaluating and interpreting facts in order to understand the world is good exercise for our brains, and might help us make good decisions,” the expert said.

“Besides the value of practicing what we call ‘historical thinking’, I believe it is still important to memorize things. I understand that basic facts are often just an internet-search away, but the act of memorizing—whether it’s historical facts or poetry or anything else—has positive effects on our brains.”

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Humans developed agriculture around 12000 years ago. By storing grain, huge numbers of rodents flourished. Cats showed up to eat the rodents, and humans learned that if they took care of the cats, the cats would control the rodents. Therefore, it was the invention of agriculture that led to the domestication of the house cat.

redvariation , Cats Coming/Pexels Report

Final score:

223points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago

Correction. The invention of agriculture led to the domestication of humans by cats.

378points

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30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Mongolian invasion of Japan was stopped by a typhoon. When they tried again, they were stopped by another typhoon. To this day these were the only two typhoons recorded in that place.

treearemadeofbark , ArtHouse Studio/Pexels Report

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205points

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Mark 3 months ago

Time to start looking into Japanese mythology…

81points

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“I’m sure it’s different for every person, but I think learning something surprising helps us stay humble and open-minded,” Lunt told Bored Panda, suggesting that browsing random historical facts every once in a while is not a bad idea. “If we are surprised by a new fact or idea, that can help us realize that our assumptions are not always valid, and that we might need to change our minds. In a world full of strong opinions—both informed and uninformed—a little bit of humility and some open-mindedness go a long way.”

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Abraham Lincoln's son (Robert Todd Lincoln) was present at three different presidential assassinations. After McKinley, he decided not to accept any more invitations.

Remote-Building3208 , trialsanderrors/Flickr Report

Final score:

194points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago

He does seem to be a bad luck charm.

44points

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30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks The Canadian-Denmark whiskey war was probably the most polite war ever. It involved a small island off the coast of Greenland. The Canadians claimed it by putting the Canadian flag and bottles of Canadian whiskey on the rock, and the Danes would replace it with schnapps and the Danish flag. Both sides reached an agreement to split the island in 2022. I'm guessing this is more well known to Canadians and Danes than some of the rest of us.

censorized , Social Soup Social Media/Pexels Report

Final score:

193points

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justagirl 3 months ago

Okay, we should all fight wars like this. Two countries or more agree on a meeting place, and then every month or whenever, an elected representative of their country brings some of the country's delicacies. First one to completely blow away the other team, wins!

23points

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30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Ancient Romans would put sandals on the hands of sleeping people then tickle their face so they would slap themselves.

WhimsicalWhispere , Andrea Albanese/Pexels Report

Final score:

158points

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Spidercat 3 months ago

Is this not a scene from Life of Brian....

79points

Angela B 3 months ago

"He's NOT the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"

32points

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Ace 3 months ago

"He has given us his shoe!"

15points

Andy Cran 3 months ago

he is the Messiah,I should know I've followed a few

12points

The Other Ben 3 months ago

This comment has been deleted.

-1point

WorkAholic1 3 months ago

This needs to make a comeback

3points

Don't listen to me 3 months ago

The Romans wrote a lot. All in latin but there's lots of translations. Very interesting.

2points

Andrew Read 3 months ago

That’s hilarious!

2points

Jen Exer 3 months ago

Chancla self-slap!

1point

Alecto76 3 months ago

And not put their hands in water or freeze their bras. Heathens.

1point

Doofnuts 3 months ago

Didn't have shaving creme.

1point

Janice Sanz 3 months ago

THAT'S FUNNY

0points

Andy Frobig 3 months ago

Had they not invented shaving cream yet?

0points

justanotherweirdo 3 months ago

Why is this not more commonly known? 😂😂😂

0points

Abdullah Abd Rahman 3 months ago

😁

0points

Loreta 3 months ago

I think I'm roman at heart

0points

Megan Fair 3 months ago

This is hilarious

0points

Savahax 3 months ago

Yeah I'm trying that obviously

0points

Thomas Maertens 3 months ago

And we know this... how?

0points

Kris 3 months ago

History is written. Even stupid and funny history.

17points

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_physically_insane_(he/they/any) 3 months ago

Someone probably wrote about it

6points

Bookworm 3 months ago

We have Ancient Roman rude graffiti, so possibly that. Could also be some kid's doodle in the margins of a lesson, or a record of a punishment... surviving records aren't all government documents, sometimes they're just people's lives.

4points

shankShaw deReemer 3 months ago

This is my question, too. And is it just to show they had a sense of humor or what?

1point

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In an interview with Bored Panda, Lunt shared that the facts that fascinate him the most revolve around the things that ancient people believed to be true, which today we no longer hold as factual. “It helps me remember that the things we consider today to be ‘true’ might cause future humans to chuckle at our own ignorance. For instance, there was an ancient tradition that Socrates, the great philosopher, interpreted sneezes as divine messages.”

Another example that the expert gave was the case of the Roman writer Pliny the Elder who recorded a tradition (written by an earlier writer named Caecilius) that the entrails of a hairy spider could be used as a contraceptive, if attached to a woman’s body before sunrise.

Portugal had a Death Queen and it is an insane real love story.

If you like Romeo& Juliette, search for the story of Dom Pedro and Dona Inês for the real life version of it.

Long story short: Dom Pedro was 1st in line to be the next king of Portugal so his father, the King, arranged a marriage suited for his position with a Spanish noble lady. But the future King fell in love with one of the ladies in waiting of his bride, Dona Inês.

They got married in secret and had a bunch of kids. The King didn't like that and sent his Knights to kill her. Dom Pedro went bat s**t crazy, found the Knights and killed them and ripped of the heart of one of the Knights.

Then he got the corpse of Dona Inês, put it on the throne and made the nobles pay allegiance to her by kissing her hand.

He still became King in the end. There is a lot more too this story but all of it is crazy but true facts. Portuguese Royals history is full of stuff that could be part of Game of Thrones.

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Final score:

146points

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Luis Hernandez Dauajare 3 months ago

Let us not forget that sometimes death does not stop revenge. Pope Stephen IV exhumed the previous Pope, dressed him up, put him on trial, cut off his blessing fingers and dumped in a river. Stephen was later dethroned and strangled in prison.

46points

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#10

The Great Emu War in Australia (1932) - soldiers armed with machine guns fought emus to protect crops. The emus won.

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Final score:

146points

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Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 3 months ago

You just HAD to bring that up again, huh? Sheesh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

86points

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#11

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks For Americans: the Coal Wars were a series of armed conflicts from the 1890s to the 1930s in which the exploitation of mining workers led to riots and then outright battles between the workers and the armed mercenaries hired by mining companies to terrorize and kill them. It culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, which ended when the United States Army was deployed on domestic soil to eliminate the strikers.

And then our nation collectively memory holed it because we wouldn’t want other exploited workers to get ideas.

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Final score:

145points

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Green Tree 3 months ago (edited)

for more watch the 1987 movie Matewan starring James Earl Jones, among others. 94% on Rotten Tomatoes

63points

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Lunt shared that the things people once believed to be factual information that are no longer true help him remember that, as much as humans are in some ways ‘universal’, the people of the past are very different from the people of the present. “Remembering that the Romans liked to eat dormice, or the Greeks exercised naked—the root of the word ‘gymnastics’ in ancient Greek is gymnos, meaning ‘naked’—helps me remember that ‘the past is a foreign country’, as L.P. Hartley wrote,” he said.

#12

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks The Chinese sparrow hunt in 1960. It was to protect crops but it allowed invasions of locusts that no longer had a predator and this caused the great Chinese famine.

NismanNoMurio , Pixabay/Pexels Report

Final score:

143points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago

Nature knows what it is doing, stop f*****g with it.

181points

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#13

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks The reason we have coal is because trees weren't biodegradable back then, so it just underwent the geological proces and formed underground under pressure and high temperatures.

The fungus that breaks down trees, only evolved 40 million years ago.

SpidermanBread , Pixabay/Pexels Report

Final score:

141points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago

When we run out of coal that will be it, mushrooms do such a good job breaking down wood.

50points

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#14

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Richard Nixon conspired with Saigon to win the 1968 presidential election. He interfered with the Johnson administration’s attempt at a peace treaty. This was literal treason and I feel that very few people know about it. The NYT wrote a piece about it in 2017.

AlertOtter58 , GPA Photo Archive/Flickr Report

Final score:

127points

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Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 3 months ago

Well, Nixon WAS a Republican

97points

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“I am also interested in less-well-known historical stories that nevertheless show great drama and spark interest,” Lunt continued. “For instance, take the story of Cratesipolis, a woman who was married to a Macedonian nobleman named Alexander (not Alexander the Great).

“This Alexander occupied some Greek cities near the Isthmus of Corinth, including the city of Sicyon. Eager for independence, some warriors from Sicyon betrayed and killed Alexander, thinking they had won freedom for their city. Not so: Alexander’s wife, Cratesipolis, took control of her husband’s army, quelled the insurrection, and crucified those who had betrayed her husband.

“Women are often under-represented and many of their stories are untold in Greek history. I like reading stories like these that have somehow survived for thousands of years, and—like I pointed out above—they upend some of our assumptions (in this case about the role(s) of women in the ancient Greek world). Of course, maybe Cratesipolis was the one exception to the gender roles at the time; or maybe—and this is what I hope to be the case—ancient women had more opportunities than the sources suggest.”

#15

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States of America as an independent country.

prosperosniece , Casablanca Stock/Pexels Report

Final score:

125points

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Doofnuts 3 months ago

You rock Morocco! (See what I did there?)

26points

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#16

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks A very recent historical fact that is weirdly not talked about as much as it should be -- Microsoft had accumulated such a big monopoly over the personal computer market through the 80s and 90s that in 1997 Microsoft was nearly broken apart by the US government. In an attempt to avoid an investigation, Microsoft invested nearly $150 million into a then-failing Apple Computer to give the US government less ammunition in a potential anti-trust case. This saved Apple from bankruptcy and helped them to become one of the biggest tech companies in history. Microsoft, however, profited off of this investment. In 2003, Microsoft sold their shares in Apple for nearly $600 million.

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Final score:

120points

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Fred L. 3 months ago

Pretty sure they now wish they'd kept those shares.

45points

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#17

In general, most of the "peaceful" movements that resulted in freedoms we enjoy today (civil rights, labor organizing, anti-war protests, the anti-colonialist movements led by Gandhi and Mandela, etc), required **significant** direct action and targeted political violence in order to succeed.

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Final score:

117points

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T'Mar of Vulcan 3 months ago

Sometimes people have no choice. Even Madiba said that he didn't WANT to use violence, but the ANC understood that only violence would get the apartheid government to listen. It's not like the National Party had a sudden attack of conscience in 1990.

61points

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Discussing the topics and periods in history people tend to be least acquainted with, the expert pointed out that in general, they are—understandably—most familiar with the history of their own locations, homes, and families. “In addition, we have the tendency to slip towards the present in our estimations and evaluations. So, in general, I would suspect that the more ancient in time, and the more remote in geography, the greater the capacity for unknown information and facts.

“I live in the United States, and I would love to learn more about ancient China and India,” he shared. “Occasionally, I have the chance to teach World History and we touch upon the ancient cultures of these places, but we can only scratch the surface of what there is to learn. Of course, I can—and I do—read and learn on my own as I can, but there are only so many hours in a day. Similarly, I wonder if people living in China and India today know less about the ancient cultures of the Americas because of the geographical distance that divides them. I don't know this; I just wonder about it.

“In the world I study, one of the best sources for little-known facts or stories is the ancient Greek writer Plutarch. Plutarch is credited with writing volumes of anecdotes, quotations, essays, and ‘fun facts’ about the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Collectively, these works are called the Moralia.”

#18

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Stegasaurous died out 145 million years ago, T Rex 72-65 million years ago, the Stegasaurous was as old to the T-Rex as the T-Rex is to us.

Grasses evolved about 70 Mya.

Ok-disaster2022 , Pixabay/Pexels Report

Final score:

110points

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Bookworm 3 months ago (edited)

In the Making Of clips from the Walking With Dinosaurs series, one of the major complaints from the filmmakers was that as soon as you find a nice open bit of landscape to digitally add a dinosaur to, there's grass in it, and since there was no grass when dinosaurs were alive, they couldn't have any in the film.

41points

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#19

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Many people know about Neanderthals, but there were also other human species as well. Homo heidelbergensis and Denisovans the other ones that we know of that existed in the time of Homo Sapiens.

space_llama_karma , Vitor Paladini/Unsplash Report

Final score:

108points

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Nitka Tsar 3 months ago (edited)

I thought this is common knowledge? I’ve learned about these and homo erectus and homo ergaster and homo habilis and what not at school. But especially about the neanderthals and homo heidelbergensis of course, as I live in Germany.

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#20

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day.

Idea_not_loading , Doina Gavrilov/Pexels Report

Final score:

107points

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Savahax 3 months ago

Wikipedia agrees

27points

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“Of course it is entertaining to learn obscure or little-known facts—the so-called ‘fun facts’—and I like the notion that these might spark curiosity and a desire to learn more. But history is more than just assembling esoteric facts. There’s definitely benefit to learning fun trivia (what historians call antiquarianism), but the analysis and interpretation are the true craft of the historian,” Lunt added.

#21

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks The Pony Express lasted only a year and a half.

TheAndrewBrown: It does seem to have been marketed heavily, but it was also one of the first ways to communicate across the country. It also went bankrupt because the telegraph was invented and made it obsolete, which led to it being romanticized like a lot of other “old west” stuff was that got replaced by newer technology. But it was a huge deal during that year and a half

Civil-Resolution3662 , Jake Hutchinson/Flickr Report

Final score:

104points

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Nils Skirnir 3 months ago

Yeah the Old West was but a blip in US history. Why it’s so popular is still a mystery to me

31points

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#22

The tale of the dancing plague of 1518. In Strasbourg (modern-day France), a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing uncontrollably in the streets. Within a month, about 400 people had joined her. The phenomenon, now believed to be a case of mass hysteria or ergot poisoning, resulted in several deaths from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.

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Final score:

103points

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Michael MacKinnon 3 months ago

There was swinging and swaying, and records playing?

48points

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#23

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Humanity was likely nearly wiped out about 900,000 years ago when our ancestors were reduced to about 1280 breeding individuals and stayed around that many for 117,000 years.

limbodog , hj_west/Flickr Report

Final score:

99points

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Anna Boes 3 months ago

How? What? Why? Huh?

32points

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#24

In the 1920s Liberia had a general election, which the True Whig party won with 243,000 votes.
There were 15,000 registered voters for the election.

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Final score:

99points

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sbj 3 months ago

Sounds like the norm in some countries

45points

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#25

Bicycle face.

"In the 19th century, a mysterious condition called "bicycle face" was created to scare women from riding bicycles - **flushed cheeks, hard clenched jaw, bulging eyes** are just some of the symptoms".

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Final score:

95points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago

Partly to deter women from having any freedom and to be able to travel relatively long distances. Think how horrific it would be for us men if women were allowed independence! Next the gentle womenfolk will be wanting to wear trousers and vote!

147points

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#26

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks Coca Cola still uses coca leaves in their formula but just for the flavor. They are the only US company that is legally allowed to import coca leaves. The processed leaves are then sold to a pharmaceutical company.

sn0m0ns , Olena Bohovyk/Pexels Report

Final score:

88points

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Soy 3 months ago

"pharmaceutical company" That's what they tell everyone.

45points

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#27

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks More people died during the production of the V2 rocket than were killed by it as a weapon of war.

tim_to_tourach , allen watkin/Flickr Report

Final score:

86points

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TotallyNOTAFox 3 months ago

One factor was that the british managed to transmit wrong target and impact information back to the launch sides, resulting in misses of population centers

34points

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#28

Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the Bible by hand that removed the whole first testament and any and all mentions and references to miracles and the supernatural. It’s called a Jefferson Bible and you can still get them.

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Final score:

86points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago

Like Harry Potter without the magic?

59points

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#29

The magician Harry Houdini hated people who claimed to be psychics and clairvoyants so much that he once testified before congress in an attempt to get fortune readings and things like that made illegal.

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Final score:

85points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago (edited)

He started his career as a "psychic" and "clairvoyant" at the circus. He learned all the tricks and when spirit readings became popular he was "genuine" psychics use all these same circus tricks.

28points

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#30

30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks In the early 1900s, the Tennessee Children’s Home Society was an illegal orphanage that kidnapped babies from poor households and sold them.

If you're interested, read the book Before We Were Yours.

Reach-for-the-sky_15 , Rasy Nak/Pexels Report

Final score:

83points

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Candi Cabaniss 3 months ago

It was a corrupt family court judge (female) and a social worker. They did not physically kidnap, the judge would remove parental rights. Then the pair would split money on "adoption" fees. I have family from that area, during a TV movie on the story, they drove by and showed a mental hospital, implying that woman who gave birth there were used as a baby source. My comment was "hey Grandma was a nurse there."

60points

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