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30 Eyebrow-Arching Historical Facts

By:: Eric B; Cracked Writers

October 04, 2023

30 Eyebrow-Arching Historical Facts

Too often, the stories behind historical events get obscured by dry data and statistics. But when you dig beneath the surface, history is strange, surprising, gruesome and weird. And so, we got to digging and turned over some real dirt with this baby. Read on for some shocking but true tales from the past…

30

The U.S. was still paying a Civil War pension in 2016. Irene Triplett in 2016 The sum was $73.13 per month, paid to one Irene Triplett (b. 1929), the daughter of a soldier who fought on both sides of the Civil War. When she was born, her father Mose was a spry 83. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

29

The first man returning from space was met by potato farmers. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin parachuted from his space capsule down to the village of Saratov, and walked up (in his orange spacesuit) to a woman farming potatoes with her granddaughter. They freaked out the moment they saw him, then he calmly told them who he was. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

28

Hurricane Katrina flung over a thousand coffins all around New Orleans. Even worse, many were ripped open, which scattered the remains inside. A lot of the coffins ended up in remote or inaccessible spots, like swamp and forest areas (some got stuck in trees). People are still searching for and identifying the remains. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

27

The team searching for the Challenger's wreckage found cocaine worth millions. Experts spent nine weeks scanning 420 square miles of ocean with sonar. They found ordinary trash, a refrigerator, half of a torpedo, eight shipwrecks, and more. Oh, and a duffel bag with 25 kilos of cocaine (that came from who knows where), worth about $13 million. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

26

King George V's time of death was chosen for its PR value. When George lay dying in 1936, the royal family wanted the morning journals, not the lower-class evening ones, to announce his death. So he got a lethal dose of morphine and cocaine at 11:55 p.m. on January 19. He apparently wasn't asked, and probably wouldn't have approved. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

25

In WWI, a random Russian got kidnapped by his own country's peace negotiators. The team negotiating Russia's withdrawal from WWI planed to bring a peasant (to represent the common people), but on the way to the train, they realized they forgot him. So they snatched a badly dressed guy off the street, and next thing he knew, he Was talking to European princes. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

24

A WWII submarine had a reindeer onboard for six weeks. The British sub HMS Trident carried Pollyanna the reindeer, a personal gift from a Soviet admiral, back to England. She ate so much food (plus some navigation charts) that she got too big to walk out, and had to be lifted out with a winch (a sailor with a broom helped). CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

23

WWII landmines are being dug up, and reused, by ISIS. Because the Sahara's dry, hot Climate is great for preserving things, plenty of the 17 milliom landmines left there after WWII still work. So ISIS has been digging them up and MacGyvering them into IEDs. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

22

Germans trained WWII tank operators with porn. Mollo: Wohltatig ist des Wassers Macht. falls Du an Glysantin gedacht. Wasser ist ein Kuhlmittel umspult wie eine frische Brause unablassig das Gehause fuhrt die Hitze. die durch Verbrennung Und Relbung entsteht, ZU den Kuhlern. Esspeichert Im Winter auBerdem le Warme wie cin Sammler den Strom Und halt dadurch en Motor startbereit. 20 Liter braucht Dein Tiger. Bel 85 fuhit er sich sauwohi Wasser ist ein Sprengmittel Wenn es ZU Eis friert, dehnt es sich u.n 10% aus. Wenn die Wande nicht nachgeben konnen. werden sie mit Urgewalt gesprengt. Eis sprengt Felsen — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

21

In WWI and WWII, a French village mourned a latrine. During WWI, the villagers of Bourg, France, where general Patton ran a tank school, thought a sealed pit with two crossed sticks was a U.S. soldier's grave. It was a latrine, and the sticks meant keep away. Patton didn't correct them. When he came back in WWII, it was still treated like a grave. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

20

On the Manhattan Project, safety standards basically didn't exist. In a key experiment, the plutonium was contained by one technician holding a screwdriver. But the screwdriver slipped, and the plutonium killed the technician. This happened twice. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

19

During the French Revolution, they caught Louis XVI because his GNAT face was on money. BRE I ES DES I NAT VILROI S ASSIGNATS par le decr of Avril 1790 , sanctionne While running to the countryside, Louis and Marie Antoinette (both disguised) were stopped by a postmaster who thought he recognized Marie. Once he compared the guy With her to a 50-franc note, he was sure. Pretty soon, they were arrested, then beheaded. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

18

At Mao and Stalin's first meeting, the USSR stole Mao's poop. On Stalin's personal orders, the sewage pipes in the house where the two met were rerouted to special storage boxes. The thinking was that an analysis of the chemicals in his poop would reveal secrets about Mao's psychology. (Did it work? Nobody knows.) CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

17

In WWI, two enemy captains just decided not to fight. SS Gwendolen, the British ship The captain of the British ship and the German ship patrolling Africa's Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi) didn't want their decade-long friendship ruined. So WHEN WWI started, the British captain shot the German ship once and faked the capture of its captain. Then they got back to hanging out and drinking as usual. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

16

A rare genetic condition probably stoked the Hatfield-McCoy, feud. Several descendants of the Coys were found to have von Hippel-Lindau disease, which causes adrenal tumors that make you short-tempered : and violent. So, at least on the McCoy side, the feud was probably fuelled by tumors pressing on the adrenal glands of those involved. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

15

The first African American presidential secretary was announced on a game show. MR. DALY Instead of letting the world know about his appointment through a boring press conference, Lyndon Johnson wanted to use What's My Line?, a hit game show where people guessed what job guests had. The secretary, Geraldine Whittington, said OK, and history was made. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

14

When the Berlin Wall fell, banana sales exploded. Titanic Zonen- -Gaby (17) Im Ghack (BRD): Meine erste Banane East Germany only got mushy brown bananas, SO when the Wall came down, East Germans went crazy for unripe green bananas. There's a joke that they rose up for bananas, not democracy, and whenever a long line forms, Germans say, Are they handing out bananas or what? CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

13

A Civil War battle stopped SO the soldiers could watch a fistfight. In the Battle of the Wilderness, a Confederate and a Union soldier hiding in the same gully began to duke it out after trying, and failing, to capture each other. Soon, both sides stopped firing and got closer SO they could cheer on their dude. (The Union guy lost, and got captured.) CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Historical Facts That Don't Get Mentioned

12

No Black person was given a Medal of Honor for WWII until 1997 Vernon Baker was the only living recepient of the seven Black people who were awarded the Medal of Honor for their service in WWII decades later. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

11

The US military was segregated Black men and women fought for their country but were denied basic human rights. For example, Black servicemen could not enter Southern restaurants where their German prisoners were served meals. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

10

In the US, 70% of codebreakers were women 11,000 women were in the Army and Navy as codebreakers. In 1944, they intercepted 30,000 water-transport messages a month, enabling the Navy to sink almost every transport ship to the South Pacific. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

9

Japanese internment camp residents lost $400 million in property Around 120,000 people with Japanese ancestry were ripped from their homes and imprisoned. Congress only provided $38 million in reparations and then $20,000 to surviving individuals 40 years later. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

8

Jewish resistance fighters fought against Nazi persecution From rescue missions to underground railroads to launching attacks even within camps, many Jewish people risked their lives to save others. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

7

There was only one German mass protest against the deportation of Jewish people In 1943, the Rosenstrasse Protest was started by non-Jewish wives of Jewish men who were to be deported. Because of the protest, intermarried Jewish people were largely permited to remain with their family, and 35 people who were deported to Auschwitz were returned to their families. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

6

The Nazis had a lot of help to set up camps FRET A historian says of the Auschwitz blueprints, ...everyone who had even anything remotely to do with the planning and construction of the concentration camp must have know that people were to be gassed to death in assembly-line fashion. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

5

The US government turned away thousands of Jewish refugees Government officials accused the Jewish asylum seekers, fleeing from the Nazi regime, of being Nazi spies. For example, in June 1939, the US sent away all 937 passengers of the German ship St. Louis. 254 of those passengers died in the Holocaust. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

4

The firebombing of Tokyo was as deadly as an atomic bomb Over 100,000 civilians died during the firebombing by the U.S. Army. Compare that to the estimated 140,000 civilians who died in Hiroshima and 74,000 people who died in Nagasaki, and it's a tragedy that it doesn't make our history books. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

3

Testing nuclear bombs in the U.S. has killed over 10,000 Americans The U.S. government had 1,000 nuclear tests in Nevada, with another 67 in the Marshall Islands. The tests caused cancer, resulting in a very low estimate of the fatalities being in the thousands. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

2

During WWII, Britain caused three million deaths in India Despite being painted as a hero against genocide, Churchill's policies caused the Bengal famine of 1943. He redirected food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

1

The first man-made item to travel in space was a Nazi war missile Nazi Wernher von Braun was responsible for both the deadly V-2 rocket and NASA's Saturn V, which took Apollo 11 to the moon. CRACKED.COM — Source: 12 Facts From WWII History We Don't Hear Enough

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