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History Enthusiasts Are Sharing History Facts That Many People Would Find Shocking (50 Facts)
Interview With Expert
Even if you think you have a decent grasp on the past, chances are that you are still a little off here and there. Fortunately, through the vast resources of the internet, one can sit down and fill in the many, many gaps in their knowledge.
Someone asked “What’s a historical fact that would shock most people to find out?” and people shared their best examples. We also got in touch with archaeologist Ari Akkermans to learn more about how we see the past. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and share your thoughts in the comments below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The ancient Greeks, inventors of democracy, would elect their officials to one year terms. Each officials' finances were audited at the beginning and end of their term. If anything was amiss, they would be tried and executed.
Thomas Grant 7 months ago
Well this almost happens today. But without the execution. Or the successful auditing. Or, in many cases, the trial. Or the democracy. Or one year terms... huh...
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#2
Sharpshooter Annie Oakley had a stage act where she would shoot a cigarette out of someone's mouth. While she was touring Europe, Kaiser Wilhelm Il of Germany surprised everyone on a whim and insisted on holding the cigarette.
Ever the professional, Oakley shot the cigarette without harming the Kaiser.
Several years later WWI is underway and the US goes to war against Germany.
Oakley wrote a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm asking if she could have another try at that shot.
He didn't reply.
#3
The world’s first programmer was Ada Lovelace in the 1840s. She was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.
Two programming languages were named after her.
Bored Panda got in touch with archaeologist and historian Ari Akkermans and he was kind enough to share some of his thoughts. Firstly, we wanted to know what he thought many people got wrong about history. “I guess the most common misconception about the past, which can be seen especially in the way people approach archaeology and antiquity, the past isn't something that happened in a time completely separate from the present; a lot of the past is still in the present: Think of environmental pollution that happens hundreds of years ago, mass graves from the Neolithic, Roman temples or bomb shelters from World War I.”
“They all refer to events that happened a long time ago, but that survive not only as a memory, but in physical form too. Some things from the past of course have disappeared, but the entanglement between peoples, landscapes and things is so strong, that we are still living with a lot of the past, think about the wheel or agriculture. Another common misconception of course is that the past was better, and as Virginia Woolf notes, the past is always beautiful because it has time to expand.”
#4
America-centric: The first person to attend an integrated school only qualified for full Social Security benefits two years ago.
People think about the legacy of Jim Crow and American racism as if it were the relic of a bygone era. It’s not. The people who were throwing rotten fruit and rocks at Ruby Bridges- the younger ones- are still alive. Many of them are still running the country. The older ones died recently and absolutely passed on their values to their children, who are probably even younger than Ruby.
American racism is not “my ancestors”. It’s “my grandma”.
Rosecrucian Roeth 7 months ago
American Racism is still very much in vogue..........................
#5
Woodrow Wilson was mentally and emotionally incapacitated by a massive stroke in October 1919, and his wife and doctors essentially ran the country until Harding took office in 1921. Some historians refer to Edith Wilson as "the first female president.".
#6
When the colosseum was used for fighting they used to line the stage with sand to soak up the blood. The Latin name for sand is harena, which means "sand" or "sandy space"...so that's why we call modern concert/show spaces arenas.
“Our childhood memories are probably not realistic, and because of the temporal distance, they contain a lot of projection. But that's also not to say the past was worse... So in fact it was neither worse nor better. We also tend to speak about earlier times using adjectives such as primitive or medieval, but those were very complex worlds that cannot be dismissed so easily. At the same time, for all our 'civilization', we're living through some of the most violent and unequal times in recent history.”
“To affirm that the past was neither better nor worse doesn't mean to cancel progress, which does exist, but never in linear form. It's difficult to get a timeline of human civilization because civilization isn't a stable concept. What might have been considered civilized in the 19th century, for example, colonization, isn't today. We tend to use certain markers to define the beginnings of civilization, especially architectural ones, because we're used to thinking of civilization in terms of monumentality, but this is a bias inherited from the classical heritage of Europe.”
#7
The Second Congo War, also known as Africa's World War was the deadliest conflict since World War 2 with over 5 million people killed.
Most people have never heard of it despite it ending in 2003.
Donkeywheel 7 months ago (edited)
« Most people have never heard of it despite it ending in 2003 » *in the USA. Where most people wouldn’t even be able to pinpoint the location of Congo (BC, RC, DRC, then or now) anyway. This war was intensively covered in world news everywhere else.
#8
When the SS Britannia went down in the South Atlantic, a raft of survivors managed to get away. According to the men on the raft, there was one more survivor on the raft with them. But he was unfortunately pulled under by a **Giant Squid** which then returned and attacked their Lieutenant named Cox, who they managed to save before scaring the beast away. Their claims were called out as preposterous and made up when they returned home...until Lieutenant Cox got sick of being accused of such and went to see a local marine biologist at a college. The biologist validated Cox's claims as he had scars 1-1/4 inches in size, which definitely belonged to a 23-feet long squid. It is believed that this story is the only known substantiated report of death by Giant Squid.
Dragons Exist 7 months ago (edited)
Bruh BP you fúcking censored Cóx. It's a literal name. You also made me have to give it an accent to get around the censor
#9
The United States, under the guise of providing free healthcare, intentionally left Syphilis untreated in African Americans in order to study the effects.
This was done without their consent, and they were discouraged from going to any other doctors.
Now people will be like "Oh of course they experimented on slaves!'
No, this started under FDR in 1932, and went on until 1972.
“There are some civilizations that did not leave grand monuments, but whose achievements are perhaps equally important or even more, than those of the Near East, for example the way indigenous people arrived in Australia from the Pacific during the Ice Age, long before navigation was invented. Another point of departure for civilization has been traditionally agriculture, and therefore sedentary life,” he shared with Bored Panda.
#10
Some Greenland sharks have been alive since before the U.S. became a country.
#11
Potatoes are native to Peru, not Ireland.
Tomatoes are native to Mexico, not Italy.
Macadamia nuts are native to Australia, not Hawai'i.
Pineapples are native to Brazil, not Hawai'i.
Beef cattle are native to India, not Texas or Argentina.
Coffee beans are native to Yemen, not South America.
Kiwi fruit is native to China, not New Zealand.
Vanilla is native to Mexico, not Madagascar.
Oranges are native to China, not California or Florida.
#12
The US secretly injecting people (typically poor / minorities, including children and pregnant women) with plutonium and other radioactive materials, and then studying them for decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States#Human_radiation_experiments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_radiation_experiments
When they finally admitted it, the report was released at the same time of the OJ verdict to bury the story.
“But there were so many other possibilities, Paleolithic peoples lived in so many different arrangements, in many different political and cultural systems. The modern world is far narrower, and frankly we seem to be stuck in a system that isn't working very well for most people, so to speak of modernity as the peak of civilization is perhaps foolish.”
#13
A lot of things women take for granted are fairly recent developments. Stuff like being able to have a credit card in your name. Buying a car or a house without a male cosigner. And it used to be extremely bad to be a divorced woman. I'm not talking about the 40s. I'm talking about the 70s-80s.
Women weren't allowed to get credit cards or open bank accounts until 1974.
Women got the vote in 1920.
A lot of these vary by state. I'm sure there were states where women bought houses before 74 or had bank accounts. But it wasn't a nationally protected thing until 74.
Heck the house I grew up in was bought in 74 by my mom. Coincidence?
John Dilligaf 7 months ago
My Grandmother marched in support of the 19th Amendment . One of my earliest memories (early 1970s) is my Mom pitching an absolute fit and storming out of a bank because they demanded that a male relative co-sign for her to open a checking and savings account. She was divorced and in her 30s. She later told me, she was go*damed if she was going to ask her dad (my grandfather) to sign. She went to three banks before one would open an account for her.
#14
Jimmy Carter has been alive for 40% of US history.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 6 months ago
He was still volunteering at Habitat for Humanity in his 90s. Dude was 94 and still building houses. He's backed off since he into into hospice care but I wouldn't be surprised if he still shows up at jobsites with peanut butter sandwiches for the workers. God bless that peanut farmer.
#15
Picasso, Bruce Lee and JRR Tolkien all died the same year.
“I would like to think a good bar for measuring civilization as a timeline I guess would be the beginning of art, or rather, the beginning of abstraction, when the human brain cortex was developed enough to process symbols. This moment took place during the Ice Age, between 100,000 and 12,000 years ago. All the great prehistoric art we have in museums comes from this period.” You can find more of his work on Instagram or his various sites.
#16
The year 536 was deemed the worst year to be alive. Volcanic eruptions caused prolonged dark sky for up to 18 months. This then caused a mini ice age, crop failures and plague over the next 10 years killing millions
Also the name Tiffany has been in use since the 1600s.
two-sided llama 7 months ago
You know guys I feel if we all come together we can beat that record.
#17
Britain executed men as cowards during WWI if they had “shell shock” which is what we call PTSD today if they could not or would not fight as a result .
#18
Columbus's contemporaries didn't criticise he because they thought he would sail off the edge of a flat earth; their criticism was that he was significantly underestimating the *size* of the earth's globe - and they were quite right, he was.
Stephanie Did It 7 months ago
The myth of a flat earth wasn't nearly as predominant in ancient times as it is claimed to be. The Biblical prophet Isaiah mentioned "the circle of the earth" not as a revelation, but as a known fact around 740 BCE (Isaiah 40:22). People have known the planets are round spheres for a long, long time.
#19
Sharks are older than the rings on Saturn.
#20
Earth will never have (abundant) coal again. Coal exists because trees/plants evolved lignin but fungi did not evolve the ability to decompose lignin until millions of years later. Wood was just piling up all over the place for millenia, sometimes catching fire, sometimes getting buried & turning into coal.
Tabitha 7 months ago
People don’t realize that fossil fuels, minerals, etc are finite resources we have been extracting and burning—-and therefore, greatly depleting—-for centuries now. We will run out and it won’t be long before we do. So we should be switching to infinite energy sources, such as solar and wind. Problem is we have coal and oil companies wielding way too much power and squelching any research that proves their limitations, instead of embracing it and evolving into solar and wind energy companies. They will end up the same as the carriage makers and livery stables that didn’t retool to manufacture car bodies and convert to parking garages with the rise of the automobile—-and they know it. Only they’re not willing to give up the billions of dollars they’re making right now to spend a good chunk of it for that retooling. They will be as extinct as the dinosaurs who contributed to the raw materials they pump out of the earth.
#21
Many people know about the Suffragettes who won the vote for some UK women in 1918. Many people don't know that prior to 1918 men did not have universal suffrage. 1918 is also the date which non landowning men got the vote. Prior to that the vote had been only for wealthy landowning lords, just 5% of the population. Over a period of the preceding 80 years concessions were slowly made to allow more men, and then some women to vote.
#22
We are closer to the time of the T-Rex than the T-Rex is to the time of the Stegosaurus.
Minecraft_Chicken (He/Chicken) 7 months ago
Cleopatra was closer to the iPhone then the great pyramids.
#23
That in 2006 the earth was hit by a gamma ray burst from a distant supernova that stripped away about 6% of our top atmosphere (its fine now). If it had been bigger it would've wiped everything on earth out (and by bigger I mean if it was 20-25%).
#24
It took about 4 times longer to get from copper swords to steel swords, than it took from steel swords to atomic bombs.
james stevenson 7 months ago
over 2000 years from chariots to carts. less than 200 years from carts to supersonic jets
#25
Europeans are able to tolerate lactose better than most ethnic groups because our ancestors kept drinking milk even tough it would make them s**t their pants. Just too good to let a bit of shotgun s**t ruin it.
#26
The first telephones didn't ring. Owners had no way of knowing if there'd be someone on the other end when they picked it up. It took a year or two to create the noise alert.
John Nelson 6 months ago
"Dear sir, we are writing to inform you that on the afternoon of Friday hence, we shall endeavor to speak to you via telephone to express our concern concerning your buggy's extended warranty."
#27
Your ancestors did not eat purer food and the preservatives we have now are a thousand times more preferable to what went on before the food safety reforms of the mid 1900s to 1910s. Even in the so-called more pastoral times had no sense of germ theory. Your food - say, a loaf of bread - would be coughed on, sweated on, possibly stomped on or chewed up at some points (esp in bread baking, they'd stomp it down), throw chalk and other adulterants like metal powders in it, and bake it in a dirty oven with unwashed hands, and placed in open fly-ridden air for display and sale.
Also, olives are only mushy and rubbery now because freshly canned olives gave so many people deathly food poisoning in the mid-50s, that they now cook 'em in the can like tuna or shredded chicken to avoid another disaster.
#28
People used to get their feet X-rayed at the shoe store to check their shoe fit.
#29
Within a single person's lifetime, we went from all transportation being by horses, ships, and trains, to landing a man on the moon.
#30
Did you know that during the 17th century, wealthy Europeans would consume parts of mummies for medicinal purposes? Yeah, they actually believed that mummy powder could cure everything from headaches to stomach ulcers. Imagine reaching for a jar of ground mummy remains instead of aspirin!
Dread Pirate Roberts 7 months ago (edited)
So technically, back then, rich Europeans were cannibals 😳
#31
Hitting children in school was still legal when I was there and I'm only 43.
#32
Approximately 8% of Canadians were enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I.
That isn't 8% of eligible Canadians, or 8% of Canadian men; that's 8% of the entire population of Canada. If a similar proportion enlisted in the United States today, there would be 26 million people serving in the US Armed Forces.
Delta Dawn 7 months ago
That’s 10x the current size (relative to population) of the US armed forces
#33
Napoleon was actually 5 foot 7 inches not 5'2.
geezeronthehill 7 months ago
British disinformation to make him seem less legit. Folks subconsciously want taller leaders.
#34
The tram was invented by a Mr. Train
King George III was personally *against* the Stamp Act, and in NY a statue was erected of him in thanks for his role in appealing it
Nelson Mandela was listed as a terrorist threat (and remained on the terrorist watch-list) in the USA up until 2008.
geezeronthehill 7 months ago
If there was any symmetry to the universe, the train would have been invented by Mrs. Tram.
#35
A military plane carrying two nuclear warheads broke apart and crashed in North Carolina. The state would have gotten nuked if it weren't for a single safety switch preventing detonation. These nukes were bigger than the ones we used in Japan.
Read up on the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash.
#36
The fact that sturgeons survived the fall of the meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs, and have not evolved in any way since then.
Vix Spiderthrust 7 months ago
Bollocks. It is literally impossible for them not to have evolved since then. Their *body type* might not have changed, but their immune systems, in a constant war with ever-evolving microbial life, will be bang up to date.
#37
The last use of the guillotine in France and the release of the first*Star Wars* movie occurred in the same year - 1977.
#38
The unfair taxation the US revolted against was actually very fair and only a fraction of what British in other colonies were paying.
#39
We put man on the moon before wheels on suitcases.
Justin Tyme 7 months ago
But we still haven't put wheels on astronauts or suitcases on the moon.
#40
The British pet massacre. In 1939, about 400,000 cats and dogs were killed in order to prepare for World War II food shortages. This was approximately 1/4 of the pets in England.
#41
The United States government intentionally poisoned 10,000 people by spiking the alcohol they drank during prohibition.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 6 months ago
Just to clarify, alcohol was still needed for medical and industrial purposes. To prevent people from drinking this alcohol it was "denatured". The alcohol we drink is ethanol. It denatured by mixing it with methanol and isopropyl alcohol to make it toxic. Those alcohols have very similar properties to ethanol and are extremely hard to seperate. People tried anyway. Prohibition really was one of the dumbest things the USA has ever done and that's a very long list.
#42
George Washington’s dentures were not wooden, but were crafted from various materials, animal teeth, and the teeth of enslaved people.
Justin Tyme 7 months ago
A set of his dentures are on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan.
#43
Constantinople, and thus, the Roman Empire, fell in 1453.
There is a 16th Century Spanish explorer named Juan de Fuca who is credited with exploring the strait that borders Vancouver Island, Canada, and Washington, USA (now called Juan de Fuca Strait).
Juan de Fuca is a Hispanicization of the Greek name Ioannis Phokas. His grandfather fled Constantinople and his family eventually ended up Spain.
This means an actual descendent of the Roman Empire was exploring North America.
#44
The third most deadly war in history (after the 2 world wars) was in China from 1850 to 1864. It was started by a cult leader who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus. He and his followers sought to overthrow the Emperor and set up a quasi-Christian theocracy. In the end the rebellion left 10% of China's population dead.
Edit: And of course fun fact- the leader of the Imperial forces was General Tso who later got a chicken dish named after him.
#45
Romans knew lead was poisonous. They still used it a lot.
#46
There is no such date as September 3, 1752. Because of the conversion from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in England and its colonies, September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752.
There was also no such thing as any date between January 1, 1751, and March 24, 1751. Prior to 1751, the first day of the new year was March 25. Parliament changed that to January 1. As a part of that transition, March 24, 1750 was followed by March 25, 1751, but December 31, 1751 was followed by January 1, 1752.
Delta Dawn 7 months ago
But we can’t manage to get rid of daylight savings time because it would be too complicated
#47
During World War II, the United States military developed a plan to use bats as bombs. The idea was to attach small incendiary devices to bats and release them over Japanese cities at night. The bats would then roost in buildings, and when the devices detonated, they would start fires, causing chaos and destruction. While the project, known as "Project X-Ray," never saw combat, it's a bizarre example of the lengths to which military strategists were willing to go during the war.
Dragons Exist 7 months ago
Honestly less weird than the CIA trying (and failing) to kill Castro by putting a pretty shell on the beach with a bomb for him to pick up
#48
There was only one monogamous emperor in Chinese history, the Hongzhi emperor of the Ming Dynasty. He apparently invented the toothbrush to impress his wife.
I think when most people think harem they think of a couple of hundred women, but ancient Chinese harems could get *crazy.* There was one emperor in the Tang dynasty who had like 40,000 concubines. A lot of lower ranking concubines never had sex with their emperor and never even saw him. I heard that Wu Zetian (only female emperor) had like 5,000 male lovers and it drove the traditional nobleman insane but I can't find any sources for that lol.
Thomas Grant 7 months ago
40,000 is a teeny bit excessive. Assuming that he lived to be 80 that would be roughly 10-11 concubines a week from the moment of birth. I dont even think i talk to that many people some weeks...
#49
Siaka Stevens was technically both the shortest and longest serving leader of Sierra Leone.
He was an opposition leader that won an extremely close election, and the ruling party that had been ruling the country since independence didn’t want to lose their power, so they planned to arrest him just before he could take the oath of office, but things didn’t go exactly to plan and he ended up being removed from office a little while after taking the oath of office, meaning he was technically president for a little less than an hour before being removed from office.
However, there was a counter coup a few months later and Siaka Stevens was brought back into power. During his time in office, Stevens became increasingly authoritarian and eventually established a one party state, ruling the country for 17 years.
TotallyNOTAFox 7 months ago (edited)
So basically the standard way governments work in most of Africa
#50
Door knobs were invented in 1848. .
Melissa Harris 7 months ago (edited)
There have been handles, latches and pulls on doors since...doors. It's the round, turning k**b that has an integrated lock that was an improvement on previous designs. Edit: apparently I have to use doorknob as a single word to not offend the elderly British AI
What do you think ?
geezeronthehill 7 months ago
We speak of the stone age because stone tools did not rot away. It is very likely that bone and wooden tools, cordage and fiber containers played at least as important a role in the material culture of our hominid ancestors.
Lydsylou (she/her) 6 months ago
I googled every one of these and unlike usual the majority were actually true! Only slight inaccuracies! Congratulations bored panda.
killjoy 6 months ago
lilo nd stich was done just before September 11 2001 but they had to push the release date until 2002 because there was a seen where stich hijacks a plane and flies it through hawai'i crashing into some buildings but they thought it would be too sensitive so they changed it to where he hijacks a ufo and flies through the mountains
Katie Lutesinger 6 months ago
I've seen the deleted footage! As a fortunate side effect, using the spaceship also explains how Jumba and Pleakly got to Earth in the first place. I loved Jumba's line "what, you think we walked here?"
Load More Replies... geezeronthehill 7 months ago
We speak of the stone age because stone tools did not rot away. It is very likely that bone and wooden tools, cordage and fiber containers played at least as important a role in the material culture of our hominid ancestors.
Lydsylou (she/her) 6 months ago
I googled every one of these and unlike usual the majority were actually true! Only slight inaccuracies! Congratulations bored panda.
killjoy 6 months ago
lilo nd stich was done just before September 11 2001 but they had to push the release date until 2002 because there was a seen where stich hijacks a plane and flies it through hawai'i crashing into some buildings but they thought it would be too sensitive so they changed it to where he hijacks a ufo and flies through the mountains
Katie Lutesinger 6 months ago
I've seen the deleted footage! As a fortunate side effect, using the spaceship also explains how Jumba and Pleakly got to Earth in the first place. I loved Jumba's line "what, you think we walked here?"
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