Cracked Archive - History

55 Facts About The World's Nuttiest Leaders
Today, we're looking at the world's truly nutty leaders, and the sides of them that you'd never expect.
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- By Cracked Writers, Ryan Menezes
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61
4 'Internet Things' That Are Older Than You Thought
Sometimes your distant ancestors also participated in the same dumb stuff you do.
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- By Mark Hill
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23
First Woman To Become A Pinkerton Detective (Kate Warne) Deserves Her Own Movie
The entirety of genre fiction couldn’t invent a character as slick as Kate Warne.
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- By Amanda Mannen
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23
5 Ridiculous Titanic Tales That Didn't Make The Movie
James Cameron skipped the best parts ...
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- By Mac Faber
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28
That Time The 'Sherlock Holmes' And 'Christmas Carol' Writers Became Ghost Hunters
Even in death-obsessed Victorian England, they were pretty much immediately a laughingstock.
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- By Amanda Mannen
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7
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You Learned the Recorder Due To School Cheapness
Why can you play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' on an instrument that fell out of favor in the Vivaldi era?
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- By Amanda Mannen
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25
Soooo The Assassin Plan In 'Manchurian Candidate' And 'Zoolander' Was Real
In the early '50s, Project ARTICHOKE 'attempted to induce amnesia and highly suggestive states in its subjects' ...
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- By Amanda Mannen
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13
4 True Crime Stories That Crank The Crazy
Remember when a surfer robbed the Museum of Natural History?
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- By Alex Hanton
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14
4 Historical Figures With Undeserved Reputations
The thing about history is that it tends to concern people who are no longer at liberty to say “Wait, I can explain.”
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- By Amanda Mannen
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54
Charles Dickens' Jerk Bird Inspired Edgar Allan Poe' 'The Raven'
That’s right: One of the most well-known poems in the world today is essentially fan fiction.
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- By Amanda Mannen
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2
Can't Make It Up: The Reason Oklahoma's Shaped Like That
Why is Oklahoma?
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- By Amanda Mannen
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33
5 Historical Texts That Were Surprisingly Filthy
The authors who wrote these works have been dead for centuries, so we've passed the event horizon from 'prurient' to 'educational.'
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- By Alex Hanton
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21
U.S. Presidents Can't Really Accept Gifts (Except For Occasional Lions)
Never look a gift lion in the mouth.
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- By Cedric Voets
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14
Mailmen Really Did Use To Deliver Babies
Back off, storks, this is USPS territory.
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- By Cedric Voets
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6
Inventor of Modern Condoms' Family Battle To Get Their Factory Back
Fromm was forced by the Nazis to sell his business at a fraction of its value because Fromm was Jewish and Nazis are evil.
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- By Amanda Mannen
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