5 Of The Most 'Wuh?' Facts History Class Never Covered

5

Woodrow Wilson Turned The White House Into A Sheep Farm

Woodrow Wilson, pleased that World War I contained his initials, really wanted to join the fight. The rest of America said, "No Woody, that's a stupid reason to join," but eventually Germany tried to convince Mexico to attack America and then sunk some American ships. It was, understandably, on.

But war requires a ton of support and material from the home front. And back then, you couldn't just slap a Support the Troops bumper sticker on your F150 and call it a day. People actually had to donate money and supplies, ration their food, and generally live a much more austere life for the duration of the war. So to set a good example, Wilson turned the White House into a farm.

Woodrow Wilson Presidential LibraryIt wasn't a pork barrel project, but it wasn't far off.

He had 48 sheep grazing on the White House lawn for passerby to marvel at. Wilson knew the idyllic image would be powerful. He wanted people to see him doing his part for the war effort. The idea was that the sheep would eat the lawn, thus cutting the cost of trimming it, and he could shear them to raise money for the Red Cross.

The problem was that cars in D.C. scared the sheep sick -- literally. According to reports at the time, the sheep kept getting the "dips," which was probably as gross as it sounds. Wilson didn't want a bunch of sick sheep on display, so he moved them to the back lawn, which they promptly destroyed. He then moved them back to the front lawn, but had to frantically build the fence he should've had in the first place.

4

The Jews Who Supported Hitler

We're going to go out on a limb here and call the Third Reich an antisemitic organization. Hating Jews was what the Nazis did best. And yet somehow there were not only Jews who supported Hitler, but also some who rose high in the ranks of Nazi leadership.

German Federal ArchivesPossibly really high.

3

Werewolves Were Tried Alongside Witches, Because Of Tomatoes

Baseball is to America as hunting witches was to Europe. Well, and also to America -- Salem and all -- but the point is that people used to really enjoy killing women. European witch trials resulted in the executions of thousands of women, but witches weren't the only magical creatures on trial. Thousands of men and women were also executed for being werewolves in the 15th and 16th centuries. Authorities at the time believed that the two went together like peanut butter and chocolate, and that the same goop witches used to make brooms fly also had the power to turn people into werewolves. Witches liked werewolves because they enjoyed visiting Hell and eating the "left sides of children" (hey, even a monster can be a connoisseur).

2

"White Slaves" Played An Important Role In The Abolition Movement

If the American South took gold at the racist Olympics, then the North won silver. Before and even during the Civil War, abolitionists found it difficult to get many northerners to really care about the plight of slaves. Many in the North were racist themselves, and they were also selfish. Emancipating 4 million people meant white workers would have a whole new labor force to compete with. Abolitionists were at a loss on how to capture the North's attention, until they stumbled on to the phenomenon of "white" slaves. If abolitionists could show Northerners that slavery extended to people who looked white, then maybe they could garner their support.

1

The Muslim Divisions Of The SS

Fascists today hate Muslims almost as much as they love Tucker Carlson, so it's easy to think that kind of racism started with Hitler. But Hitler and the Nazis actually had a very strange relationship with Islam. Hitler personally hated Christianity -- a religion he described as "Jewish filth" -- and described Islam as a "religion of men." He even wrote that Germany had historically developed the "wrong religion." It was his belief that if Germany had been Muslim rather than Christian, it would be a stronger, better country rather than the weak, and quoting Hitler here, "flabby" country he saw. Muslims, in Hitler's view, were not only strong, but also potential allies in his fight against the ... Allies.

Arabs and Muslims were exempt from Nazi racial laws for the duration of the Third Reich. When the Nazis conquered Muslim regions, they devoted considerable resources to rebuilding mosques and Madrasas, as well as training soldiers on the correct behavior when interacting with Muslims. Yes, the Nazis had cultural sensitivity courses.

The entire time, Hitler hoped to spark an Islamic jihad against the British and Russians (just like in WWI), uniting their forces in antisemitism. There were even entire divisions of Muslim SS. The Nazi high command once tried to use Islamic scripture to paint Hitler as a prophetic figure after the war in North Africa started to turn. In 1943, Himmler asked Nazi security forces to find passages that they could apply to Hitler. The security office replied that no such passages existed, but they might be able to portray Hitler as a Jesus figure who comes back at the end of the world to fight Dajjal (basically the Muslim version of the Antichrist). They then printed 1 million leaflets that read: