31 Historical Bits of Trivia That Just Popped Up in Our History Book Like Some Sort of PTSD Flashback

Just a few of history’s intrusive thoughts
31 Historical Bits of Trivia That Just Popped Up in Our History Book Like Some Sort of PTSD Flashback

There we were, reading our history textbook on a Friday night like we always do, when a page we’d never seen before popped up out of nowhere. Our book started sweating as if it were nervous or something, and immediately slammed itself shut.

It seems like these historical tidbits don’t want to be left behind, but why is our history book trying to hide them from us? Let’s find out together, shall we?

 

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin tried to do away with the letter С. No, he didn't have a grudge against that particular letter - he wanted to introduce a more phonetic alphabet, dropping unnecessary letters like С, which could be replaced with К or S, depending on the sirkumstanses. No one was interested. CRACKED COM

The Mayflower

CRACKED THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT: AMERICA'S FIRST ATTEMPT AT DEMOCRACY. On November 11, 1620, the Mayflower Compact was signed, which was the first document to establish a government in the United States.

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker started the world's first terraforming project in 1850. CRACKED.COM The project has turned the arid volcanic wasteland of Ascension Island into a self-sustaining and self-re- producing ecosystem made completely of for- eign plants from all over the world.

Jamestown

In 1524, Spain created a settlement close to Jamestown's site. It failed a few years later, though - - long before Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement on the continent, was founded in 1602. CRACKED.COM

The BCE/CE Dating System

The ВСЕ/СЕ dating system is about one thousand years old. It was created some 500 years after Year о, or the birth of Christ, and it only got accepted 500 years after that - s so, as a relatively widely used system, it's about one millennium old. CRACKED.COM

Cigarettes

In the early 20th century, they treated asthma with cigarettes. There was a special brand, Asthmador Cigarettes, that didn't have any tobacco -- just some Datura stramonium, a plant that had been used to treat asthma. CRACKED.COM

The Slave Trade

Sugar was a key reason the slave trade kept going as long as it did. Sugary beverages were super popular in the 18th century, and harvesting and purifying sugar cane was done with slave labor. CRACKED.COM

The Bible

In the original Hebrew and Greek text of the Bible, there was no apple. The fruit that Adam and Eve ate was just fruit. The first Latin translation called it malus, a pun - malus meant both apple and evil. CRACKED.COM

The Largest Bell Ever Made

The largest bell ever made was lost by a greedy governor. Portugese warlord Filipe de Brito e Nicote was granted a governorship, then promptly declared independence. Не tried to melt the Shwedagon Pagoda's 23-ton bell to make cannons, then dropped it in a river. De Brito was executed at the stake. CRACKED.COM

The Ming Dynasty

The Wanggongchang Explosion killed 20,000 people in the capital of the Ming Dynasty in 1626. THE CHINI AN OCEAN No one knows what caused it, but it killed several government officials and the emperor's only heir. The only guard who remained calm enough to protect the emperor was killed by a falling ceiling tile. CRACKED.COM

The HMS Dolphin

The 1767 expedition of the HMS Dolphin had to be cut short due to accidental horny mutiny. Captain Samuel Wallis noticed his crew were dismantling the ship for iron parts, which were traded for sex with locals. CRACKED.COM

Malaria

An early treatment for syphilis was malaria. The guy who came up malarial blood transfusions won the Nobel Prize. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Nintendo

Nintendo is over 130 years old. T PLAYING TRADE CARDS MARK di A THE NINTENDO PLAYING CARD GO SHOMEN-DORI OHASHI, KYOTO. JAPAN They've sold playing cards, ramen, and even tried their hand at love hotels. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Wine Cellars

CRACKED THE OLDEST KNOWN WINE CELLAR IS 3,700 YEARS OLD. It was discovered in 2007 in the ruins of a Cannanite palace in Israel. The cellar contained 40 jars, each capable of holding 50 liters of wine.

Trans Acceptance

CRACKED.COM The early 20th century was more accepting of trans people than you think. While life for transgender people was never exactly easy, there were places 100 years ago where you could be out as trans. Berlin was a particularly accepting city in the 1920s. A lot of research in the field was done there, before the Nazis came marching in and burned it all.

Napoleon

CRACKED.COM Napoleon used fake news to defeat an enemy. Napoleon was racing back home to reinforce his crumbling empire, a French newspaper said. This pleased Austrian tactician Karl Mack von Leiberich, who rode to rout whatever was left of Napoleon's forces. Except that the newspaper was a fake, planted by Napoleon's moles - Mack walked straight into a trap, and had to surrender his entire army.

The Black Dinner

CRACKED.COM The Red wedding borrows from real history. During the Black Dinner of 1440, a plate with a beheaded black bull was presented to an Earl, believed to be a usurper, before he was arrested and beheaded. The Glencoe Massacre of 1692 had the same type of twist, but here it was the dinner guests who massacred their hosts.

Saturn Devouring His Son

SATURN DEVOURING HIS SON WAS NEVER MEANT FOR PUBLIC DISPLAY The famous painting is one of 14 haunting paintings that Francisco Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house, overwhelmed by the Spanish Civil War and his personal medical issues. CRACKED.COM

The Horse Skulls of Ireland

OLD HOUSES IN IRELAND HAVE HORSE SKULLS BURIED UNDERNEATH THEM Some historians believe the horse skulls helped with acoustics for step-dancing. CRACKED.COM

The Paris Morgue

THE PARIS MORGUE USED TO A BE A POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT SPOT The morgue used to display bodies in hopes of identifying the drowned, but by the late 1800s, it became a public spectacle, drawing huge crowds and street vendors. CRACKED.COM

Charles II

CHARLES II OF ENGLAND DRANK HUMAN SKULLS Called The King's Drops, the King consumed an alcohol drink including a tincture made from skulls taken by gravrobbers in Ireland. CRACKED.COM

The U.S. Flag

CRACKED.COM THE CURRENT U.S. FLAG WAS DESIGNED BY A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT. 17-year-old Robert G. Heft made a 50-star flag for a school assignment when Alaska and Hawaii were given statehood. Не got a В-, which was changed to an A when the government adopted his flag.

Tea-Making Tanks

CRACKED.COM BRITISH TANKS HAVE LONG INCLUDED TEA- MAKING FACILITIES. OUT S ST 07 0 59 С Before 1945, Brits had to stop and climb out of their tanks for their tea breaks. Since that time, they've been able to remain safely and cozily (or cosily) secluded, thanks to a built-in boiling vessel.

Lost History

CRACKED.COM 97% OF HUMAN HISTORY HAS BEEN LOST. Humans appeared 200,000 years ago. Writing is about 6,000 years old. This means that only 3% of our species' history has been recorded.

The Constitution

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS RIDDLED WITH MISTAKES. We the demectic People provide Condition of Articl All Pensor We're not talking here about stuff such as not giving everyone the right to vote- we mean the many misspellings contained in the Constitution. Just ask the delegate from Pensylvania. CRACKED.COM

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith was killed by an angry mob while incarcerated. CRACKED.COM A local had exposed Smith's practice of polyga- my implying that he used his religion as a pretext to seduce and marry unas- suming women, including the wives of some of his closest associates.

The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire mined so much silver that at peak production they were mining 220 tons per year. Scottsdale Silver - Leo Your Olive us CRACKED.COM This was 5 to 10 times larger than the com- bined amount of silver available to Medieval Europe and the Ab- basid Caliphate around 800 A.D.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway hunted German U-boats in the Caribbean during WWII. CRACKED COM Hemingway used his fish- ing boat named after his ex-wife (Pilar) to hunt Ger- mans, armed only with Thomson machine guns and hand grenades. Не was given unlimited gasoline by the US government.

Coca-Cola

Coca Cola is responsible for Santa Claus being depicted as fat. CRACKED.COM In 1863, cartoonist Thomas Nast began drawing Santa with a huge stomach, but his jolly weight problem wasn't cemented in pop culture until the 1930s with Coke's advertisements.

Spring-Heeled Jack

Sightings of the mysterious Spring-Heeled Jack stretch from 1837 to 1904. A MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES CRACKED.COM Jack was a boogeyman that was said to ring resi- dents of Londons' door- bells dressed as a bear, a ghost or a devil and scratch them with metal claws before leaping away with unnatural agility.

Ancient Rome

The first Roman fire brigade was created to be a very lucrative, paid service. CRACKED.COM The firefighters did nothing while a price was negotiat- ed. Failing to reach a deal, the structure was allowed to burn to the ground after which an offer was made to purchase it for a fraction of its value.

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