When we were studying for our history exams in school, we didn't believe that there are disturbing historical facts that no teacher would teach us. We might have hit on the most critical points of humanity's past, but there are lots of gory details to be uncovered, varying from fascinating to utterly gruesome. Take a look at the following 40 crazy historical information that schools definitely skipped over!
1) Witch-trials have a long and dark history. You have probably heard of the Salem witch trials. However, the hunt of witches goes back much further than that. According to one anthropologist, in medieval times, approximately 600,000 “witches” died.
2) Animals were also often put on trial in the medieval ages—and given a death sentence too.
3) During America’s Dust Bowl (in the early 30s), sewing flour sacks into clothing was quite popular. So popular that flour companies started to sell flour in decorative bags that were intended for future repurposing into clothing.
4) During the 19th century, which was before medical professionals had the tools to discern comas or paralysis from death, the fear of being buried alive was intense. Patented ‘safety coffins’ were invented so that mistakenly buried people could alert those above ground to their predicament.
5) During Pope Gregory IX’s term, he declared that cats were associated with devil worship, resulting in their mass extermination.
6) Ironically, it is thought that this large-scale expunging of felines helped to spread the Bubonic Plague, which ravaged Europe in the 1300s and killed more than a hundred million people. No cats meant that the rat population (which carried the plague) ran wild.
7) Roman emperor Gaius (widely known as Caligula) went out of his way to humiliate the Roman Senate by making one of his favorite horses a senator.
8) The Europeans’ arrival in the Americas led the Native American population to drastically decline from about 12 million in 1500 to roughly 237,000 in 1900.
9) Wealthy Europeans in the 1500s and 1600s ate parts of corpses, believing them to have medicinal properties. Blood, power ground up from the human skull and human fat were all used to cure various ailments.
10) Tomb raiders even desecrated Ancient Egyptian tombs to steal the remains of mummies, which the aforementioned wealthy Europeans proceeded to consume.
11) President Einstein was almost a thing. In 1952, Albert Einstein could have become the president of Israel. However, he declined the offer.
12) The shortest war in history lasted for only 38-45 minutes. It was the Anglo-Zanzibar War which started and ended on August 27th, 1896.
13) Bunnies defeated Napoleon Bonaparte: in a celebratory rabbit hunt, after concluding the War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon was swarmed by the very rabbits he intended to hunt. He was forced to escape carriage (though a few of the bunnies managed to follow him into the coach). And you thought Waterloo was humiliating!
14) Before proper dentures came approximately in the mid-1800s, dentures were crafted using teeth taken from the mouths of deceased soldiers.
15) King Tut’s mother and father were recently confirmed to be siblings. DNA from the mummified remains of Tut’s mother demonstrated her to be both mother to Tut, and sister of his father, Akhenaten.
16) During World War I, Jackie the baboon was awarded a medal and promoted to the rank of corporal.
17) Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna held an entire state funeral for his leg after it was amputated.
18) The “New England Vampire Panic” was an event in the 19th century where people thought that “consumption” (i.e., Tuberculosis) was the result of vampires. It goes so bad that people would actually dig up those who died of Tuberculosis and put a stake through their hearts. –TheManicMonocle
19) Human sacrifice was a standard practice among the Aztecs. In fact, more than 20,000 people were sacrificed at the ancient temple of Tenochtitlán.
20) Anna Mae Dickinson is pretty possibly the luckiest woman ever. She survived the sinking of both the Titanic and Lusitania, the Hindenburg explosion, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and when she was 97, the destruction of her apartment during the 9/11 terror attack.
21) Medicine has come a long way. From 1898 to 1910, the Bayer pharmaceutical company marketed and sold heroin as cough medicine and non-addictive substitute for morphine.
22) Another kids' medicine, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, did contain morphine.
23) Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, a Russian mystic, survived several simultaneous murder attempts. He was shot, stabbed multiple times, and poisoned…before finally drowning in in the Volga river.
24) 15th-century Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler consumed the blood of his enemies with meals. He was born in Transylvania; combined with his annoying habits and the family name ‘Dracula,’ Vlad inspired Bram Stoker’s gothic vampire novel.
25) Joseph Stalin ordered photographs to be revised, editing out people who forcibly went missing (were murdered).
26) Speaking of Stalin, he and his regime are responsible for up to 15 million deaths between 1929 and 1953, though the exact number could not be determined.
27) The Democratic Party’s symbol is a donkey because, in 1828, someone called Andrew Jackson a “jackass.” In their defense, he was, but the donkey became a democratic symbol as Jackson’s way of shooting back at the name-caller.
28) Edgar Allan Poe’s “The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” (1838) was about four shipwreck survivors stranded in a boat before they killed and ate a cabin boy–Richard Parker. In 1884, a ship was stranded with only four survivors. Three of the men killed and ate the cabin boy, also named Richard Parker. –Darclite
29) Some people in the Victorian Era made jewelry out of their deceased loved ones. Teeth, hair, and bone could all be incorporated into “memorial jewelry.”
30) Major Henry Rathbone shared President Lincoln’s box, along with both of their wives, when Lincoln was shot. Rathbone tried to stop John Wilkes Booth, got stabbed by the assassin, and 18 years later Rathbone shot and stabbed his wife to death in the same manner. Rathbone spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.
31) Countess Elizabeth Bathory was named by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer and is the female counterpart to Vlad the Impaler. She reportedly killed at least 80 young women between 1585 and 1609—although personnel at her trial estimated that roughly 200 bodies were removed from her castle, and another unverified testimony passed down through the years suggests the number of victims was upwards of 650.
32) John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two founding fathers who were present for the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which Jefferson wrote), died on the anniversary of their nation’s birth. They both passed away on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the original Independence Day—July 4, 1776.
33) In Canada in the 1500s, women imbibed a formula that was supposed to prevent pregnancy: a mixture of alcohol and ground beaver testicles. Not very efficient.
34) In 1511, the people of Brussels, Belgium built over 100 snowmen in lewd or ridiculous positions. Amongst the snow-mermaids and snow-unicorns, there were also fornicating snow people, a snow-nun seducing a snowman, and one snowman ‘peeing’ into the mouth of another. Believe it or not, the townspeople used the construction of these snowmen as a form of protest.
35) Joan of Arc was a legendary badass, better than the stuff of legend because she lived, fought, and died for her beliefs. One of her allies, however, was one of the most prolific serial killers in history. Gilles de Rais, one of Joan of Arc’s ‘companion-in-arms,’ began murdering young children after her death and his retirement from the military. Before he was caught and executed, he killed between 80 and 200 children—although a few have suggested the number goes as high as 600.
36) ‘Trial by Ordeal’ used to be a method of judging innocence or guilt in the Middle Ages. One method? By sticking one’s hand in boiling water. If the wounds were completely healed within three days—which would indicate a sign from God—that person was innocent. We can imagine how often that happened.
37) The carnivorous Venus flytrap plant is native only to North and South Carolina. It can’t be found naturally anywhere else in the world.
38) Ever wonder what happens if you crash into a wall at 185 mph head on? Gordon Smiley’s 1982 Indy 500 qualifying crash is exactly that. Dr. Steve Olvey is the source of this story. – HammableOfCarthage
“While rushing to the car, I noticed small splotches of a peculiar gray substance marking a trail on the asphalt leading up to the driver. When I reached the car, I was shocked to see that Smiley’s helmet was gone, along with the top of his skull. He had essentially been scalped by the debris fence. The material on the race track was most of his brain. His helmet, due to massive centrifugal force, was pulled from his head on impact…I rode to the care center with the body. On the way in I performed a cursory examination and realized that nearly every bone in his body was shattered.”
39) As late as 1902, edible wafers containing arsenic were sold to improve any facial imperfection—you know, because that’s what you think of when you think ‘arsenic.’ The wafers were supposed to be most effective with constant use, which didn’t help its users’ health.
40) The first major outbreak of syphilis occurred in 1494, and before medicine, it “caused flash to fall from people’s faces and lead to death within a few months.” Whole parts of a person’s body could rot away from the disease, making it a fairly common sight to see someone with syphilis shambling around like the living dead.
Reference: Twentytwowords
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