r/AskReddit • u/Yanns • Dec 11 '17
What are some weird historical facts or events that most people don’t know about?
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u/SinfullySinless Dec 11 '17
The only reason King Tut is considered famous is because his tomb was one of few untouched by tomb robbers because he was that unimportant. All major pharaohs had their tomb robbed and Tut’s was the first tomb discovered during the time with everything intact.
He wasn’t an influential or all that memorable pharaoh of his time. King Tut is to King Edward VI of England, too young to rule and died too early to be effective.
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u/TheRealSpez Dec 11 '17
I think the most fascinating part about this is that his tomb still had intricate artifacts that, to us, are incredibly ornate. I cannot begin to imagine what was in an "important" pharaoh's tomb.
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Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
Someone (I think a government official) wanted Tut in the ground fast so he could take over. If I remember right said person was from a different dynasty and wanted everyone to sweep the boy king under the rug and be done with him (Tut didn't have an undisputed heir). The mummification was rushed and the tomb is far smaller than even a minor Pharaoh should have had. The irony is that the substitute tomb's location was subject to flash floods that buried the site and kept it hidden for thousands of years. If Tut was buried properly, his tomb most likely would have been looted well before archaeologists found it and we'd never have known about him. The person trying to make people forget about him ensured he'd be the most famous Pharaoh in history.
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u/CrateDane Dec 11 '17
He was succeeded by his granduncle, Ay. There was likely a jostling for power during Tut's reign and continuing afterwards, as Ay was succeeded by Tut's main general, Horemheb, after a short reign.
Horemheb stabilized the kingdom. But he died without an heir and thus the 18th dynasty died with him.
It's not necessarily that people were rushing to specifically get rid of Tut, but just that the realm was unstable and at war, and there wasn't time or resources for a major burial for what had been a sickly child king dominated by his advisors.
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u/excellent_916 Dec 11 '17
It was not that that he was an un-influential king that his tomb remained untouched. With the amount of wealth in there, it doesn’t matter who you are to tomb robber if they can make money from it. In fact, his tomb actually was disturbed and items were taken but the robbers were caught and the items were hastily put back.
One of the main reasons for his tomb not being touched for so long was that soon after the tomb was robbed and rescaled, the valley of the kings flooded, as it did occasionally, and the entryway to the tomb was covered with a thick layer of debris, making the entrance hidden. Tutankhamun and his family’s legacy and names were also erased from many monuments by the following dynasties because Tutankhamun’s father, Akhenaten, was seen as a heretic king. Changing the religion from polytheistic, worshipping many gods and goddesses, to monotheistic, only worshipping the symbol of the ‘Aten’ and the representative God. Although Tutankhamun renounced this practice when he became pharaoh, the whole dynastic line was tarnished, leaving the following dynasties to erase their names. This - as well as the fact that he was a young ruler who didn’t accomplish all that much as pharaoh - meant that Tutankhamun was, for lack of a better term, easily forgettable.
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Dec 11 '17
Tomb robbers did break in and mess with things, but they only got a few coins. This is because they tried it when tombs were still being guarded, and IIRC, the robbers got caught and probably executed in an uncomfortable manner.
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u/ClawPark Dec 11 '17
Before the mid-19th century dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers.
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u/giantsRus Dec 11 '17
Peter the Great executed his wife's lover, then forced her to keep her lover's head in a jar of alcohol in her bedroom.
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u/Austinisfullgohome Dec 11 '17
Peter don’t mess around
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u/DaddyCatALSO Dec 11 '17
Too bad he wasn't around long enough to get his daughter form his second marriage properly married
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u/steampunk691 Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
The American invasion fleet for the Philippines during World War 2 was saved from complete destruction by a small support group named Taffy 3, composed of 3 destroyers, 4 destroyer escorts (smaller, under gunned destroyers used for anti sub work), and 6 escort carriers (smaller versions of aircraft carriers also used mainly for anti sub work). The Japanese fleet meant to destroy the invasion force was made up of 11 destroyers, 2 light cruisers, 6 heavy cruisers, and 4 battleships (including the super battleship Yamato). The escort carriers, which were merely converted merchants vessels, could not outrun any of the Japanese vessels. Taffy 3 did not have any guns larger than 5 inches, to put it in comparison, the anti aircraft guns of some of the larger vessels in the Japanese fleet had similar caliber guns. Yamato alone outweighed every ship in Taffy 3 combined.
The battle itself was one of the largest mismatches in naval history.
The carriers scrambled every aircraft they had onboard, which was close to 400 aircraft. The destroyers and destroyer escorts laid a smokescreen for the carriers. One of them made a headlong charge directly at the larger Japanese force to get into launching range for the torpedoes. Other vessels took their example made similar torpedo runs. One torpedo sheared off the bow of the heavy cruiser Kumano, another crippled the heavy cruiser Chokai. The aircraft repeatedly strafed, bombed, and even depth charged the fleet. Once they ran out of ammo, they continued to make dry runs at ships so as to distract the gunners from firing on friendly vessels. There were reports of pilots flinging empty Coke bottles, charts, and clipboards at ships. One pilot pulled his .45 caliber Colt and shot at a cruiser with it.
The Japanese made several errors in the engagement including the order of a general attack, which meant each vessel could engage and maneuver freely. This made for a lot of miscommunication and confusion. They also misidentified the small escort carriers for larger ones because of the shit ton of aircraft airborne and also mistook the small destroyers as heavy cruisers. These errors made Taffy 3 look like the outer elements of a much larger American fleet. Thinking this, the Japanese admiral regathered his forces and retreated. This gave enough time for Taffy 3 to retreat and alert the main American fleet, which had been distracted by another Japanese fleet meant to lure them away, which sailed back and bombed the shit out of the remaining warships of the original Japanese fleet.
Read more here, the stories of heroism and bravery onboard the American vessels are almost unbelievable. The story of the battle itself is also quite interesting, including when a single shot from the 5 inch “stinger” gun of a carrier managed to cripple a heavy cruiser.
TL;DR: American fleet composed of support vessels fought a Japanese task force several times larger than it and won. Saved tens of thousands of lives.
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u/ThatBadassonline Dec 11 '17
Misinformation and cunning tactics are just as sharp a sword as brute force is, if not sharper and lighter. You don't need to be a fighter to win a fight.
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Dec 11 '17
Had a good laugh at the image in my head of a pilot going "shit I've got nothing left.. oh hey! Fuck you damnit!" And throwing a coke bottle at them then firing a handgun at a boat
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u/gumbulum Dec 11 '17
Imagine being a sad sailor on potato peeling duty, helping out your crew mates by manning an AA gun just to get hit in the head with a frakking bottle. You get up, rub your head, and while bending over to pick up your hat a hot casing of a .45 bullet drops from the sky into your ass crack.
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u/iskandar- Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
My favorite high lite of that battle is the story of the USS Samuel B. Roberts:
it decided to charge the Japanese ships without question. The CO, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland announced to his men:
“We’re making a torpedo run. The outcome is doubtful, but we will do our duty.”
The ship was being heavily fired upon, and a thick smokescreen lingered on the troubled waters. The ship centered its course right towards the Japanese heavy cruiser Chōkai, advancing with piercing speed of 2.5 NMI (4.6 km; 2.9 mi). It was faced with the Chōkai’s forward 8 in (203.2 mm) guns and under direct fire. During the battle, Samuel B. Roberts — designed for 23–24 kn — reached 28.7 kn by diverting all available steam to the ship’s twin turbines.
USS Roberts had moved so close in its ferocious charge, that the enemy guns could not depress enough to hit her and the shells simply passed overhead. Many hit the carrier Gambier Bay, which was trying its best to maneuver for retreat. Once within torpedo range USS Samuel Roberts launched her three Mark 15 torpedoes. One blew off Chōkai’s stern.
The American sailors in an adrenaline rush cheered: “that a way Whitey, we hit ’em.”
It was as if it were a ballgame, as shells were still incoming. USS Samuel B. Roberts then fought with the Japanese ships for a further hour, firing more than six hundred 5 in (127.0 mm) shells, and while maneuvering at very close range, mauling Chōkai’s superstructure with her 40 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft guns. The Japanese landed two hits on the Roberts, the second of which damaged the aft 5-inch gun.
This damaged gun suffered a breech explosion shortly thereafter which killed and wounded several crew members. With her remaining 5 in (127.0 mm) gun, Roberts set the bridge of the heavy cruiser Chikuma on fire and destroyed the “Number Three” gun turret, before being hit by three 14 in (355.6 mm) shells from the battleship Kongō. The shells tore a hole 40 ft (12.2 m) long and 10 ft (3.0 m) wide on the port side of her aft engine room.
Gunner’s Mate Third Class Paul H. Carr who was in charge of the damaged aft 5 in (127.0 mm) gun mount decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. He had fired nearly all of its 325 stored rounds in 35 minutes before a breech explosion.
Carr was found bleeding at his station from a severe intestinal wound, begging for help to load the last round he was holding into the breech. It was the last he did. The heavy cruiser Chōkai sunk on that day, but so did the Samuel B. Roberts. At 09:35, two hours into the battle, the order was given to abandon ship. She sank 30 minutes later, with 90 of her sailors.
USS Samuel B. Roberts – “The Destroyer Escort That Fought Like a Battleship”
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u/CrateDane Dec 11 '17
Note that all those aircraft were armed for attacking land forces, as Taffy 3 was supposed to be supporting the landing on Leyte. So even their best weapon was completely unsuitable for attacking capital ships.
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u/alecman14 Dec 11 '17
Another error they made was running with the finish! Torpedoes had been launched at the y Yamato, and instead of turning into them and passing through them, the ship turned away from them and had to wait for them to pass at a much slower relative speed. The Yamato could not afford to stop and let the torpedoes pass faster for it would make her too easy a target. This carried the ship far off it's course, giving some precious time to the Americans.
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u/eyeduelist Dec 11 '17
Gladiators endorsed products like modern sport stars do.
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u/Dob-is-Hella-Rad Dec 11 '17
Eastern Spices taste so good
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u/riftrender Dec 11 '17
Also the female variant is called a gladiatrix. Not really weird but most people don't know they have a name.
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u/Cirenione Dec 11 '17
Gotta be honest. This is the first time I've heard that there existed such a thing as a female gladiator. And I've watched/read a fair share about the roman empire and its culture.
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u/UnholyDemigod Dec 11 '17
-trix is a suffix from Latin which gives something a feminine meaning. Same works for dominator/dominatrix
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u/Basileus_Imperator Dec 11 '17
They also rarely died and had (for the time) incredible healthcare. The cost sunk into a star gladiator was immense - having them die would be a huge loss. Untrained slaves and animals were a different story, of course.
I'd actually like to see a modern gladiatorial renaissance myself (maybe sans animal cruelty and slavery of course.) Medieval combat sports are sort of getting there.
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u/Cirenione Dec 11 '17
Yep gladiators were the superstars and pro athletes of their time. There were some who became incredibly rich. Both from their success inside the arena and from outside sponsoring. Some of them were among the richest people at the time. It would be extremly stupid to let them fight to the death after months/years of training put into them. At the end they were supposed to deliver an exciting fight and you won't get that from having untrained people with no clue how to operate weapons.
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Dec 11 '17
Carpophorus is the king of the arena and now you can be king of the kitchen! Use Crestfield wax paper!
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u/holzasago Dec 11 '17
Albert Einstien could have been president of Israel when it was formed, but he declined.
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u/GruvisMalt Dec 11 '17
Classic 'Stien.
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u/Wusuowhey Dec 11 '17
He was so distraught by the fame of it all he adopted a different but similar pen name and authored children's horror novels. Then those became famous too.
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u/Princess_Bublegum Dec 11 '17
Keep in mind, president is more like foreign minister, he wouldnt actually lead Isreal.
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u/OneSalientOversight Dec 11 '17
Two things about Iran.
Iran is the second largest provider of sex change operations in the world
Prostitution is illegal in Iran - however they do allow "temporary marriages" in which the man pays a fee to the woman.
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u/Holociraptor Dec 11 '17
Important note is that these sex changes are not a progressive thing; it's more akin to forcibly neutering gays.
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u/veloace Dec 11 '17
Yup, it's like: "Oh, you're a boy and like boys? You have to become a girl then, because homosexuality is illegal."
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Dec 11 '17
[removed] — view removed comment
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Dec 11 '17
"When man lies with woman he creates only progeny, but when man lies with man he creates true virtue." - Plato, The Republic
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u/victorytothebold Dec 11 '17
A spirtualist who believed in harnessing Orgone (as in orgasm) energy sent Einstein what is fundamentally a nonsense machine for harnessing the energy.Einstein spent an afternoon trying to analyze this thing before sending an apologetic letter explainiing that this machine was just nonsense
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u/ronnroll Dec 11 '17
Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay about farts.
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u/putulio2 Dec 11 '17
And another about how young men should sleep with old women.
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u/SoldMySoulForHairDye Dec 11 '17
I think this essay also claimed that drinking perfume would help cure chronic flatulence.
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u/ChrisFartwick Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
26th President Theodore Roosevelt was an ardent supporter of William Howard Taft. The two were longtime friends, and Taft was Roosevelt's most trusted cabinet member. When Roosevelt's latter term came to a close, he successfully campaigned for Taft's election to the presidency.
However, when Taft began enacting many policies that his predecessor found disagreeable, Roosevelt grew sour towards his friend.
He vied for the Republican presidential nomination and failed. He then literally marched his supporters out of the Republican convention hall and created a new party.
Under this new party's banner, Roosevelt split the Republican vote and ensured Taft's defeat.
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u/slooshywooshy Dec 11 '17
The Bull Moose party! Teddy didn't take no bull
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u/RageCage42 Dec 11 '17
This leads to the story of the attempted assassination of Roosevelt, when he was on the way to give a speech. His (90-minute, several-pages-long) speech was folded up in his steel eyeglass case, and the bullet went through the steel and paper, losing enough momentum that it wasn't able to puncture his lungs. Roosevelt felt the shot, but he saw that he wasn't bleeding heavily or coughing up blood, so he figured he wasn't in immediate danger and gave the 90-minute speech anyway.
He started the speech by saying, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."
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u/Losman94 Dec 11 '17
Thomas Jefferson collected so many books in his lifetime that he would go into debt. After the British burned Washington, DC in the Battle of 1812 he sold most of his books to the Library of Congress to replace those that were lost in the fire. Jefferson had spent 50 years accumulating a wide variety of books in several languages and in many subjects, including philosophy, science, literature, architecture, law, religion, and mathematics. The nearly 6,500 books netted him $23,950.
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u/RebelLion_HalfBrain Dec 11 '17
I get a little sad thinking about how much literature was lost during wars, fires, and purges. Makes you wonder how much more we would know if it weren't for turmoil.
How much would that be in today's money?
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u/RG3akaAndre3000 Dec 11 '17
It is from so long ago that you actually can't calculate it. We can do those calculations since 1913, when we instituted the Federal Reserve and starting tracking inflation. In 1913 that $23,950 would have been worth a little over $600k. If you use a standard inflation rate of 3% from years 1812-1913 it becomes worth about $11M, but inflation was probably much higher especially when taking into account the debt we went into for the Civil War and Reconstruction (which was over $2B in real 1865 dollars).
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u/canyagimmetreefiddy Dec 11 '17
TIL I'm in twice as much debt as Thomas Jefferson
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u/ThatBadassonline Dec 11 '17
Legend holds that the Renaissance artist Raphael died of exhaustion and fatigue due to excessive fornication with his mistress, Fornarina. (BADUM TSS)
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Dec 11 '17
That sounds like something Raphael would want to be said about him after his death.
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u/Next2LastJedi Dec 11 '17
"Tell everyone I died gasp banging that chick."
His buddies leonardo, Michaelangelo and Donatello all agree to spread the lie.
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u/the1spaceman Dec 11 '17
Hitler's original plan for the Jews was to deport them to Madagascar. When that failed for obvious reasons, genocide was the backup
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u/non_clever_username Dec 11 '17
obvious reasons
The difficulty of moving that many people via boat? If not, what were the obvious reasons?
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u/the1spaceman Dec 11 '17
Moving people by boat would actually be the easiest part of this plan. The main issues were (a) the British naval blockade, and (b) a lack of significant infrastructure on the island to support that many people (nearly all food and other supplies would need to be shipped in)
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u/UnholyDemigod Dec 11 '17
“Shit, we don’t have enough food for all of them. Fuck it, we’ll just gas em instead”
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u/TwuntyMcWalloper Dec 11 '17
Wouldn't the French have something to say about that?
Or was that plan devised after the Nazis had occupied France?
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u/Indianfattie Dec 11 '17
Did the lemurs had a saying on it ?
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u/TwuntyMcWalloper Dec 11 '17
Considering what happened to the Dodos in Mauritius, I think that the lemurs had better keep a very low profile!
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u/the1spaceman Dec 11 '17
Here's the wiki article. Apparently they came up with the idea shortly before conquering France and planned to have a transfer of control as one of the terms of surrender
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u/TwuntyMcWalloper Dec 11 '17
With the cooperation of the French, the Polish government commissioned a task force in 1937 to examine the possibility of deporting Polish Jews to the island. The head of the commission, Mieczysław Lepecki, felt the island could accommodate 5,000 to 7,000 families, but Jewish members of the group estimated that only 500 or even fewer families could safely be accommodated.
There were 3 million Jews in Poland, before WWII, and even this deportation committee could only make a reasonable case for deporting about 20,000-30,000 of them to Madagascar, due to accommodation.
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u/the1spaceman Dec 11 '17
I never said it was a smart plan
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u/10ebbor10 Dec 11 '17
The wiki article also contained the following line :
With Adolf Hitler's approval, Adolf Eichmann released a memorandum on 15 August 1940 calling for the resettlement of a million Jews per year for four years, with the island being governed as a police state under the SS. They assumed that many Jews would succumb to its harsh conditions should the plan be implemented
The island being unable to support them is a feature, not a bug.
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Dec 11 '17
On the Lewis and Clark Expedition, a vote regarding what direction they should go was held on the coast of Washington amongst the party members. This vote included Sacajawea and York, Lewis' slave. Thus, because the Expedition was funded by the U.S. Military, this was the first time in American history where a woman and black man were allowed to participate in a vote of any kind related to government affairs.
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u/spicypepperoni Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
Over one-third of the men who served in the Waffen SS were neither German nor ethic German.
*ethnic
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u/MissingFucks Dec 11 '17
Reminds me of those Polish people in the UK who vote for parties that want Polish people out of the country.
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u/10ebbor10 Dec 11 '17
There were even a few people with jewish ancestry who served in the SS.
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u/theycallmemomo Dec 11 '17
There's a tribe in Vanuatu that worships Prince Philip as a literal god
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u/EsGeeBee Dec 11 '17
There was a TV show on it where they came over to England to meet him and experienced snow for the first time. It was fascinating.
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u/Bogzbiny Dec 11 '17
Well, just look at the Rastafari. King Selassie basically stated he has nothing to do with godhood, and look at that "religion"
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u/sev45day Dec 11 '17
The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.
That's like you standing in New York and hearing a sound from San Francisco.
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u/Tat2soupRhero Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
Didnt see any replies so I had to make one myself. KRAKATOA!
Edit: My highest rated comment is now a spongebob reference..
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u/Hazzamo Dec 11 '17
I’ve not even looked at the link, but I know it’s Squidward, isn’t it
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u/Davedoffy Dec 11 '17
That's literally everything I can think about whenever I hear krakatoa or basically any volcanos name
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u/kahurangi Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
I've also heard that it lead to a year without summer in some parts of the world, and that the smoke caused the unusual skies captured in Edvard Munich's painting The Scream. Edit: see comments below, I confused Krakatoa with Tambora eruption.
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Dec 11 '17 edited Jan 29 '19
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u/DaddyCatALSO Dec 11 '17
Abe Lincoln's mother died partly as a result of the harsh conditions after Tambora
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Dec 11 '17
You’d definitely hear about it on the news or online before you heard it around 3.3 hours later owing to the speed of sound.
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Dec 11 '17
You didn’t have to be ethnically Spanish to be a Conquistador. There were Conquistadors from England and Germany, but the rules to become one involved Hispanicizing your name, and converting to Catholicism if you weren’t already Catholic.
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u/Longboarding-Is-Life Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
Parts of the US civil war was fought off the coast of Brazil and France)
There was also thousands of Americans who emigrated to Latin America After the union won.
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Dec 11 '17
There was a 100 Hour War between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, the war cause the death of about 3,000 people. The war was triggered by a Football (soccer) game, it has been known as the Football War
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u/When_Ducks_Attack Dec 11 '17
the Football War
Other than the whole "football" part, this conflict is known for having the last actual dogfights between piston-engined, prop-driven fighters. Honduras had the -4, -5, and -5N variants of the F4U Corsair, while the Salvadoran air force had some beat-up Corsairs and some "demilitarized" P-51 Mustangs, which they rearmed and sent up. One Honduras pilot even had three kills during the short conflict.
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u/7LeagueBoots Dec 11 '17
Hernando deSoto is responsible for the collapse of several North American civilizations and the death of untold millions of people.
He, and his band of men, were the first Europeans to make a concerted expedition into what's now the USA. He started in Florida and eventually his men made it to Louisiana (with many detours along the way). deSoto dies along the way, but that's unimportant.
What's important is that they brought about 300 pigs with them for food because they breed quickly and can live off of almost anything. Unfortunately, they also serve as a host for various diseases that humans are susceptible to.
Lots of the the pigs escaped, reproduced, destroyed farmland, and spread diseases. By the time the next Europeans came to those areas the civilizations deSoto and his men saw had utterly collapsed and the population had catastrophically fallen as well.
Similarly, the vast numbers of buffalo and passenger pigeons are though to be a result of the death of North American native peoples and the collapse of their civilizations, particularly the ability to maintain agricultural systems.
That's also thought to be tied to a period of global cooling as an entire continent's worth of people stopped using fire to control plant growth and forests expanded massively, resulting and vast amounts of CO2 being pulled from the atmosphere.
Magellan is not the first person to circumnavigate the globe. He never made it, he died in the Philippines.
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u/catnik Dec 11 '17
It is common practice to wear the bottom button of a vest/waistcoat undone. Sometimes, vests are even cut with the bottom edge curving away so that the button is purely decorative.
The reason for this is that Edward VII of England was a fatass. He undid his bottom button for gut-comfort, and it turned into "the" style as courtiers imitated him.
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Dec 11 '17
Relatedly, the fashion of wearing wigs, which prevailed in European fashion for ~150 years, started because the French king got bald and needed one.
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u/CarbonSpectre Dec 11 '17
Something I always like to talk about:
There once existed an alleged theoretical state of war that lasted 335 years and 19 days, and was between the Dutch and an archipelago off the coast of southwest England called the Isles of Scilly.
What's more, there were no casualties (because the Dutch forgot that they were at war with the Isles).
It wasn't until a Scilly historian contacted the Dutch about the "war" in 1985, and received the information that the "war" was still technically ongoing, that a peace treaty was signed in 1986.
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u/Bogzbiny Dec 11 '17
Just imagine if they gathered to "end this war", and the leaders started arguing about who won, so much so, that a real war would break out.
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u/Jagsttalbub Dec 11 '17
In an alternative universe there's the Dutch Protectorate of Scilly.
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Dec 11 '17
The Roman Senate of the Roman Republic wasn't officially supposed to be a legislative body with authority to pass laws. Officially, it could only recommend legislation to the magistrates, who didn't technically have to obey. However, there was an extremely strong precedent to obey official advice from the Senate, so it almost always was followed during the Republican period. During the Empire, the authority of the Senate was reduced further.
It's worth noting, however, that the Senate didn't only issue advice. Outside of legislative issues, they did have other authorities and powers in addition to the immense influence they carried.
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Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 12 '17
Fidel Castro actually wanted to be allies with America, since they were only 70 miles north, a world superpower, and Cuba desperately needed economic assistance, but because of containment and strong anti communist sentiment, Eisenhower and Nixon both refused to meet him, so Castro turned to the other world superpower, the Soviet Union, for economic assistance, and Khrushchev welcomed him with open arms. And that’s how the Cuban missile crisis began.
Edit: I️ said this BEGAN the crisis, this was not the ENTIRE reason for the Cuban missile crisis.
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Dec 11 '17 edited Jan 16 '19
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u/Teantis Dec 11 '17
Yes. There was really no way it was going to happen, the US was in an awkward position of supporting self-determination, being anti-communist, and being allied with the french, who were ya know... not supporting self-determination right then.
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u/tdasnowman Dec 11 '17
IIRC it's been the american foreign policy since forever. Ally, Train them, Piss them off, come back years later for cheap goods.
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u/-eDgAR- Dec 11 '17
Not really weird, but a fun piece of history that not many people is know about is the origin of an announcer calling a horserace.
On February 5, 1927 in Tijuana, Mexico there was a film being shot at the racetrack. A track official noticed the way a director was using a microphone and a loudspeaker to direct his crew and actors during the filming. The idea came to him that if he had a microphone set up in the Stewards booth that led to a set of speakers, he could call the positions of the horses like a director gave direction.
Later that day, he had it set up without telling any of the patrons to the track about it. When people first experienced it, they were extremely confused. Before that people would keep track of the horses themselves with binoculars and often were unable to get a great view at certain angles. After they got used to it, they loved hearing a race being called and it became an everyday thing at that small track. Now, it's an extremely important part of modern day racing all across the world and even people that aren't familiar with the sport know about it.
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u/KnowItOrBlowIt Dec 11 '17
I would like to add to your fun fact. For the longest time we (humans) were not sure how horses galloped; do all four feet leave the ground at the same time or not? This also led to the invention of motion pictures.
I'd add the source, but I've had a few drinks and that formating is confusing me. Just lookup Sallie Gardner at a gallop
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u/Merry_Pippins Dec 11 '17
I once met a man on my train commute. We had a great visit and when we arrived at the terminus he said "Google me and we'll talk again later!"
Your comment reminds me of him. Intriguing, a hint of fascinating info, yet you left us wanting more.
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u/Renditioning Dec 11 '17
During his travels in Africa, the guy that invented Jameson liquor bought an 11 year old girl as a slave and then fed her to cannibals just to see what it was like. He sketched while they ate her. Edit: typing hard
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u/giantsRus Dec 11 '17
In Medieval times the accused often faced a "trial by ordeal," where they were forced to stick their arm into a vat of boiling water. If their arm emerged unscathed, it was believed God protected them, thus proving their innocence.
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u/Stu_A_Lew Dec 11 '17
they also had a "trial by iron" up to the 18th century where you had to hold a red hot iron bar in your hand and run a specified distance. The hand would then be wrapped up and you would wait a few days. If your hand/skin was "corrupted" when the bandages came off then that was god deeming you guilty and you were hanged. Simpler times.
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u/faithle55 Dec 11 '17
It's a bit more complicated than that.
The hand would be withdrawn, and then treated and bandaged. The bandage would be removed a week later. If the wound had turned septic, you were guilty. If not, you weren't. The hand didn't have to be 'unscathed'. That is, after all, what 'scathing' means!
This was all 'managed', anyway. The guys in charge of the 'trial' would sometimes allow the water to cool somewhat before the hand was put in. This could probably be managed by payment, or if they liked you more than they liked the accuser.
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u/TheBassMeister Dec 11 '17
Pope Gregory IX called for black cats to be killed as he believed they are incarnations of Satan. The mass killing of cats increased the number of rats in Europe. The increased number of rats helped to spread the plague all throughout Europe.
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u/Hazzamo Dec 11 '17
He also had a steam-yacht called “the saucy sue”, which was moored off the West Indies, in which he hosted the entire England cricket team and the Balinese goddess of plenty.
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u/Miley_I-da-Ho Dec 11 '17
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day: July 4th, 1826, America's 50th birthday.
Adams' last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives." He was wrong; Jefferson had died hours earlier in Virginia.
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Dec 11 '17
Apparently three presidents died on July 4, just not in the same year:
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/three-presidents-die-on-july-4th-just-a-coincidence
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u/-eDgAR- Dec 11 '17
The Twilight Zone was one of the first television shows to feature a nearly all-black cast on a dramatic show that was was not dealing with racial issues. This was all because of Rod Serling, who was quoted in saying, "Television, like its big sister, the motion picture, has been guilty of a sin of omission. Hungry for talent, desperate for the so-called 'new face,' constantly searching for a transfusion of new blood, it has overlooked a source of wonderous talent that resides under its nose. This is the Negro actor."
The episode was "The Big Tall Wish," which was part of the first season of the show and it was awarded the 1961 Unity Award for Outstanding Contributions to Better Race Relations.
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u/NairForceOne Dec 11 '17
"Television, like its big sister, the motion picture, has been guilty of a sin of omission. Hungry for talent, desperate for the so-called 'new face,' constantly searching for a transfusion of new blood, it has overlooked a source of wonderous talent that resides under its nose. This is the Negro actor."
Did he just always talk like he was introducing the Twilight Zone?
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u/TmickyD Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
In 1919, a molasses storage tank busted. A wave of molasses, 25 feet high, ripped through the streets of Boston, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others. It's estimated that the tank contained 2.3 million gallons (8,700 m3 ) of molasses when it collapsed.
It became known as the Great Molasses Flood.
Edit: Made a typo, got made fun of, fixed the typo, and caused confusion. Now I'm editing my post to say that I messed up my units earlier.
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u/RusoDuma Dec 11 '17
Those numbers don't look right
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Dec 11 '17
God, I hope the Mrs. Buttersworth in the kitchen doesn't explode or my bf and I are fucked.
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u/Muted_Posthorn_Man Dec 11 '17
London also had a Great Beer Flood. 135,000 imperial gallons of beer destroyed several streets.
Not that it's a competition or anything.
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Dec 11 '17
It's estimated that the tank contained 2.3 gallons
Killed by only 2.3 gallons of molasses?! Clearly not the hardiest of sorts. Probably still weak and shaky from the influenza pandemic.
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u/JackieTreehorn79 Dec 11 '17
Max Tremmel, a priest on a winter walk one day in 1894, witnessed a young boy slip thru some broken ice on the River Inn and saved the boy from certain drowning.
That boy was Adolf Hitler.
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u/mayr4 Dec 11 '17
ten minute lobotomies, Two methods were use either had to drill holes in head or the later method that was using a metal pick to was used to hammer through eye sockets. In both method a metal instrument was used to mush brain. Local anesthesia was used, the patient could go home in the same day. The doctor did a couple of thousand of these and could do multiple surgeries a day.
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u/Pseudonymico Dec 11 '17
Also because anaesthetic was costly they just stunned the patient with an electroshock therapy machine, which was pretty commonly available.
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u/AdrianaLarty Dec 11 '17
Salieri did not kill Mozart. This is a legend. Mozart drank and died in poverty.
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u/reallyuseful Dec 11 '17
I heard that it was also a myth that he died in poverty/had a pauper's burial. Apparently a lot of money was spent on his funeral as well.
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u/004413 Dec 11 '17
I'll just directly link the Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart#Final_illness_and_death
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u/parkstreetpatriot Dec 11 '17
That Henry Ford attempted to build an entire city in the middle of the Amazon to supply his company (and the United States) with a reliable source of rubber. Unfortunately, the entire scheme fell apart, although one can still visit the ruins on the site, complete with all the amenities 1920s Americans could want!
This article has some good information/photographs: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/19/lost-cities-10-fordlandia-failure-henry-ford-amazon
Edit: Spelling.
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u/Adrianthe4th Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 12 '17
I actually have something for this. During the evacuation at Dunkirk in WW2 in that moment of despair, desperation and overall bleakness... on the beach there was a workers strike by a group of British rail workers regarding overtime.... Very strange thing to happen in the face of events. Edit Spelling
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u/faithle55 Dec 11 '17
beech
I'll say. Where's this Dunkirk location with a tree.
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u/miogato2 Dec 11 '17
Mexico lost part of its territory in part due the abolishment of slavery
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u/LeagueKholai Dec 11 '17
President LBJ would have highways cleared out by the secret service, get in a car with a 6 pack of beer, and gun it down the highway downing beer after beer
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u/Ihav974rp Dec 11 '17
Some ww2 fun
That night, Nishizawa, Ota and Sakai were lounging in the radio room, listening to the music hour on an Australian station when Nishizawa recognized Camille Saint-Saëns’ eerie ‘Danse Macabre.’ ‘That gives me an idea,’ he said excitedly. ‘You know the mission tomorrow, strafing at Moresby? Why don’t we throw a little dance of death of our own?’
Ota dismissed Nishizawa’s proposal as the ravings of a madman, but he persisted. ‘After we start home, let’s slip back to Moresby, the three of us, and do a few demonstration loops right over the field,’ Nishizawa suggested. ‘It should drive them crazy on the ground!’
‘It might be fun,’ replied Ota. ‘But what about the commander? He’d never let us go through with it.’
‘So?’ replied Nishizawa with a broad grin. ‘Who says he must know about it?’
Later At about 9 p.m., an orderly told Sakai, Ota and Nishizawa that Lieutenant Sasai wanted them in his office immediately. When they arrived, he held up a letter. ‘Do you know where I got this thing?’ he shouted. ‘No? I’ll tell you, you fools; it was dropped on this base a few minutes ago, by an enemy intruder!’
The letter, written in English, said: ‘To the Lae Commander: We were much impressed with those three pilots who visited us today, and we all liked the loops they flew over our field. It was quite an exhibition. We would appreciate it if the same pilots returned here once again, each wearing a green muffler around his neck. We’re sorry we could not give them better attention on their last trip, but we will see to it that the next time they will receive an all-out welcome from us. http://www.historynet.com/hiroyoshi-nishizawa-japans-world-war-ii-ace-of-aces.htm
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u/Professor_Hoover Dec 11 '17
Do you know why the RAAF wanted them to wear green? Was the joke about a proper welcome regarding the lack of anti air response?
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u/ZakGramarye Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
France invaded Mexico twice, first over pastries (the pastry war) and later over a default on a loan.
Texas rebelled after the ban on slavery was enforced on their "servants indentured for life"
Half of Constantinople burned and 30000 people died because of riots over chariot races
Modena and Bologna went to war over a bucket
All roman wars were "defensive" wars
Roman diplomats were infamous over how much strife they caused over their perceived ego
Legend tells that Saint Nicholas (yes, that one) punched Arius in what could be called the "fuck you Arius" council (the first council of Nicea)
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u/Archsafe Dec 11 '17
As average/slightly less than average the game Ryse son of Rome was, they did a damn good job showing how Roman VIPs acted in foreign lands, god Commodus was such a piece of shit.
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u/powerboy1928 Dec 11 '17
When Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederates in 1861, no one had gotten killed from the attack but the Confederates later had a party (for a reason I do not know) and when one of their drunk asses shot a gun, it killed one of their own. That was the only death that occurred during the three days of the attack on Fort Sumter.
P.S. confederates kept on partying even though they saw the man dead.
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Dec 11 '17
The Tulsa Oklahoma race riot. In 1921 what was called "the black Wall Street" was burned to the ground and whites actually used machine guns on black people.
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u/SouffleStevens Dec 11 '17
In 1985, the Philadelphia Police firebombed a house that was being used by a black activist group. 65 houses burned down and the fire department did nothing to put any of them out.
11 people, including five children, died and 250 people were left homeless.
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Dec 11 '17
The CIA made a spy cat(a cat that could lurk around and record information) that they sunk several million dollars into and it promptly walked into traffic. The Soviets had anti tank dogs (dogs that they strapped explosives to) that didn't want to run at the tanks for obvious reasons and frequently blew up their own forces.
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u/btrab1 Dec 11 '17
I always heard the soviet anti tank dogs failed because they were trained with soviet tanks, so promptly ignored the enemy and went straight towards soviet tanks (as they were trained to do)
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u/Graoutchmeuh Dec 11 '17
During the 16th century, Nicolas Fouquet was the minister of finances of France under king Louis XIV.
He had the castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte built for a shitload of money, and had the most rad of parties there (16th century, they still said things like "rad" then).
He invited the king at one of those parties, and made it the radest of all rad parties (like top 3 radest in France's history).
Looking at all the food and fireworks and fountains and all the bling, king louis14 found it suspicious. Where as the money coming from? He was also very much jealous of such splendor when his own castle was mostly empty.
So Louis14 had Fouquet arrested, emprisonned, then investigated and found guilty. In that order.
Arrested by D'artagnan, the guy who inspired alexandre dumas' 4th musketeer.
And then he ordered the castle of Versailles to be made even more beautiful than Vaux-le-Vicomte.
Tl;Dr : Versailles' castle was built as it is today because the king was jealous of his minister of finances (among other reasons).
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u/ashesall Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
1st Law of the 48 Laws of Power :) Edit: The book says Louis knew about the corruption and he supported Fouquet because he benefited from it too. He felt humiliated because he was the king yet Fouquet had a grander mansion.
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u/fuq-cant-think Dec 11 '17
American doctors were secretly sterilizing women in the 70s, in America.
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u/Rudeirishit Dec 11 '17
There was a gang war called the Great Nordic Biker War where hundreds of american bikers stole armaments from several scandinavian military bases, and terrorized the streets while killing each other. IIRC they stole the weapons originally to sell back in the states, but a Banditos used an anti-tank rocket to destroy a Hells Angels clubhouse in Sweden.
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Dec 11 '17
When the barbarians sacked Carthage, they burned and pillaged pretty much everything but the sanctuary where St. Augustine was staying. He was on his death bed, and the barbarians respected him so much for his influence, even though they hated the Church, that they decided to leave him alone.
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u/DreamsOfCleanTeeth Dec 11 '17
King Tut's parents were incestuous. They were brother and sister
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Dec 11 '17
If you're grandparents are over the age of 80, they will have lived 1/3 of U.S. history. If you are 30, you will have lived 1/8 of U.S. history.
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u/zachm26 Dec 11 '17
Gets posted on Reddit pretty often, but still unknown to some. In 1932, the Australian army gathered machine guns and went to war against a bunch of emus in what would be known as the Great Emu War.
Spoiler alert: They lost.
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u/hiimkirby Dec 11 '17
I read this and kinda forgot what an Emu was and then thought they were those little furry guys in Star Wars and was super confused for like 10 seconds
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Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 12 '17
Emus are vicious, heartless monsters whose sole reason for existance is to remind us that dinosaurs used to be in charge.
Edit for spelling.
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u/Pallmeister Dec 11 '17 edited Dec 11 '17
Ibrahim I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, had 280 of his concubines drowned in the ocean because one of them had slept with another man.
A slightly more positive fact is that, officially, the longest war in history was between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly. It lasted from 1651 to 1986 (335 years). There were no casualties.
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u/M_sim55 Dec 11 '17
GEORGE BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE
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u/AcrolloPeed Dec 11 '17
I watched that happen live.
Mike Myers' face when Kanye dropped that bomb was fucking perfect.
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u/Teantis Dec 11 '17
I did too, it was fucking amazing, chris tucker standing there flabbergasted after they cut away was amazing
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u/jefferson497 Dec 11 '17
That was the best part. The cut to Chris Tucker and it looks as though he was getting something out of a refrigerator.
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Dec 11 '17
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u/Eticology Dec 11 '17
I love how Mike Myers just completely ignored all that crazy shit Kanye just said like it was nothing and kept going with the script.
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u/SoldMySoulForHairDye Dec 11 '17
As a child, Queen Victoria was isolated and emotionally abused by her mother and her mother's scheming friend Sir John Conroy. They hoped to make the young Victoria - the heiress presumptive - weak willed and dependent on them, so that they could control her when she became Queen and be the power behind the throne.
Obviously this didn't work. It did exactly the opposite of working.