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78 Bizarre And Fascinating History Facts That Might Change Your Perspective Of The Past (New Pics)
History is often presented as a very serious collection of dates, places, people, wars and other events that shaped the world as we know it today. But the halls of the past are adorned with so much more...
Beneath the extravagant very important historical narratives lies a parallel universe of weird moments, bizarre traditions, crazy coincidences, questionable medical practices and wacky individuals that also played a part in shaping life for us and future generations. There's an X account called Weird History that's anything but your average history textbook. Its aim is to share the more absurd happenings of the past.
Bored Panda has put together a list of the page's best posts. Some might make you cry with laughter, while others could leave your jaw on the floor. Don't forget to upvote your favorites.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Tamra 15 hours ago
It was such a horrible time. Very few people in positions of power, those who could have helped, didn't want to talk about it or address it in any meaningful way. The ignorance, fear, and even indifference caused a lot of deaths, many of which were lonely deaths. My uncle came out in the 80's after a lifetime in the closet. He died from AIDS in the late 80's, and only two of his 14 siblings visited him in the hospital before he passed. Still makes me sad.
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#2
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
In between songs, while he was leading out the employees, he was able to call his wife and speak to her. But Rick himself did not survive 9/11. After leading the 2,700 employees to safety, he went back into the building to make sure everyone was evacuated. The South Tower collapsed shortly afterwards.
#8
LakotaWolf (she/her) 19 hours ago
He also played Barf the Mog in my lifelong favorite movie, Spaceballs. Rest in peace, John, we still miss you.
#15
#17
Zatetic 10 hours ago
He played an important role in helping other scientists flee from Europe in WWII until he had to leave in 1943. He saved two scientists' Nobel Prize gold medals by having them dissolved into a solution. The solution was stored on a shelf until after the war when the gold was precipitated out and recast into medals for the scientists.
#18
#22
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
He was granted political asylum, but he left his wife and son behind in the Soviet Union. In 1978, while Korchnoi was playing in a World Championship match in the Philippines, "Korchnoi's son, who along with Korchnoi's wife had applied to leave the Soviet Union, was drafted into the Soviet army and subsequently went into hiding. In 1979, the son was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for draft evasion. His son was released from prison in 1982 and was promptly drafted again. But later that year, Korchnoi's wife, son and step mother were allowed to leave the USSR. Korchnoi divorced his wife soon after. At the time he was living with Petra Leeuwerik, a German woman who had been imprisoned in the Soviet Union and who had led Korchnoi's delegation during the candidate matches in 1977; the two would later marry."
#23
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 1 day ago (edited)
The popularity of Queen in the USA dropped dramatically after the release of I Want To Break Free. Conservative Americans were shocked to see the band dress up as women. They thought there might be something slightly "gay" about the band. Radio stations stopped playing their music.
#25
Chaos Pandas Unite 15 hours ago
What a cool lady, I’d be terrified and she looks like she’s having a ball. I see Gilda Radner up there with her, and Garrett Morris in the back left; not sure who’s on her right.
#26
Ace 18 hours ago
One might take issue with that period being termed "Ancient Egypt"; by that time it was very much part of the Greek world, so this was more a Greek thing than it was Egptian. Worth remembering that the ancient Egyptian civilisation had already been in existence for a longer period than the time between Ptolemy II and the present day.
#29
VisuallyChallengedPew 8 hours ago
It's right at the end of 'The Wharf' development near the entrance to Fort McNair where the Washington Channel divides from the Potomac River.
#33
KatWitch57 10 hours ago
If you make the dream, or improve the life, of just one stranger, then you are a hero.
#35
A widow of a WWII veteran never learned the exact fate of her husband. After 68 years she found that he was not only buried in France, but that a town in France has been honoring him for the last 68 years.
Chaos Pandas Unite 15 hours ago
I’d love names here, to be able to read a bit more about them and the French town.
#36
During the peak of the Cold War, one of the tasks given to niel armstrong was to place two soviet medals on the moon to honour their fallen soviet competitors.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
The medals were to honor cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov. Just because your respective governments are at war with each other doesn't mean that you "must" hate every single citizen of the "enemy" country.
#39
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
There'd be 8 members of my household if I could count my pets on the census XD (Hey, they're my family too!)
#41
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
Pompe disease generally does not affect cognitive function, and Megan (lower right) graduated from Notre Dame in 2019!
#42
#47
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
From the original on Instagram: "In 1963, the famous photographer Richard Avedon took a picture of a man named William Casby. William Casby, born in 1857, was 106 years old at the time. In his hands, he was holding his great-great-granddaughter, Cherri Stamps-McCray. The image amazes me because the elderly gentleman holding his descendant so tenderly, was born into slavery more than a century prior. Casby would eventually live until 1970, dying at the age of 113."
#48
LakotaWolf (she/her) 19 hours ago
He was a law school graduate (he entered the police academy after graduating law school) and had been planning to practice law with his younger brother Joel after retiring, specializing in medical malpractice cases. While he was still on the force, he volunteered as a small claims court arbitrator in NYC and took pro bono civil liberties cases. John was 38 years old when he díed.
#49
#53
LakotaWolf (she/her) 19 hours ago
The date of the plane crash is known as "The Day the Music Died". Buddy Holly was only 22 at the time. Fellow musicians Ritchie Valens (aged 17) and The Big Bopper (aged 28) also díed in the same plane crash. Honestly an absolute tragedy all around.
#56
Robert Frost couldn't read the poem he wrote for John F. Kennedy's inauguration due to the glare on the snow being too strong. So he instead recited one he knew from memory.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
One of my favorite poets. Frost recited his older poem "The Gift Outright" instead of the one he'd written for the occasion, which was titled "Dedication".
#57
#58
Phantom Phoenix 1 day ago
Her alien abductors got mixed up and dropped her off somewhere chilly...
#60
Major D Winters led perhaps the most storied U.S. army unit in all of World War II. On D-day, he and his "Band of brothers" in easy company defeated a far larger German force and allowed the allied advance to continue
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
I hate that we humans fight so many wars, but the series "Band of Brothers" does an excellent job of depicting the humanity of the soldiers who are forced to fight and suffer. It's a good watch if you haven't seen it already (but be prepared to cry!) Above - the real Major Winters is on the left, and on the right is the actor who depicted him in "Band of Brothers", Damian Lewis, who is a very talented actor.
#63
VisuallyChallengedPew 8 hours ago
The 747 saved the company. Boeing of the 50s to 90s was THE civil aviation innovator. From the 707 to the 747 to the 757 (my airplane) to the 777 to the 787. What it has become enrages me to no end.
#66
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
He looked a bit too old to be Nick Andros (Nick is 22 in the book) but he otherwise did a fantastic job. It's one of Stephen King's longer books (800+ or 1,000+ pages, depending on which version you're reading), so it's difficult to translate it to the screen. Absolutely wonderful novel, though; I highly recommend it. Hits even harder now post-COVID (it was originally published in the late 70s.)
#68
VisuallyChallengedPew 8 hours ago
This is almost certainly apocryphal. The tradition of climbing greased poles for things began in the early 19th century and were often said to recreate events that never actually happened. There's a similar tradition at the US Naval academy in Annapolis where graduating midshipmen climb a greased flag pole to get a service uniform cover (hat). The practice of pole-climbing during Evacuation Day events was sporadic over the 19th century.
#69
Salttypepper 18 hours ago
Now that a cold burn lmao....att least use your own material,not the guys you're writing about...then use so much you have to pay him ..
#71
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
"Immediately following the initial attacks on the World Trade Center, tunnels were closed, and traffic fleeing Manhattan via bridges reached a standstill. Many civilians, especially in those neighborhoods closest to the attacks, were desperate to escape the island but had no way to do so. A coast guard transmission went out. “All available boats,” it said. “This is the United States Coast Guard… Anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan report to Governors Island.” Within minutes, around 150 private ships of all shapes, sizes, and purposes reported for duty and got to work. All told, these heroic captains transported around 500,000 people away from the disaster zone."
#72
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 1 day ago
That was a shame, all those businesses and their owners not making so much money. If only we had war mongering Presidents to help keep the money rolling in.
#73
Ace 17 hours ago
Not a "quirk of statistics" but an artefact of the survey, given that a much higher proportion of the non-drinkers were very young and old drivers who are generally much more likely to be involved in accidents. "Elvik's 2026 paper (Accident Analysis & Prevention) shows the mechanism precisely: the group that drinks daily drives with a low BAC 21% of the time, while the group that drinks once a year does so only 3% of the time. The daily drinkers are also far safer overall (accident rate 0.348 vs. 0.898). Remove them from the low-BAC group and the dip disappears."
#74
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
I live in Southern California (about 15 miles away from where the restaurant was) and this was THE biggest local scandal for a while XD The restaurant tried to really embrace the scandal and roll with it, and Popeyes even partnered with them briefly, but the owner of the restaurant transferred ownership of the building/location in 2019 and the restaurant closed down permanently.
#75
LakotaWolf (she/her) 21 hours ago
"Isabelle Romée (1377–1458), also known as Isabelle de Vouthon and Isabelle d’Arc, was the mother of Joan of Arc. She grew up in Vouthon-Bas and later married Jacques d’Arc. The couple settled in Domrémy, where they managed a farm of roughly 50 acres. After Joan’s rise to prominence in 1429, Charles VII granted the entire family noble status that same year. Following Jacques d’Arc’s passing, Isabelle moved to Orléans in 1440 and received a pension from the city. Determined to clear her daughter’s name, she appealed to Pope Nicholas V to reopen the original heresy case. In her seventies, she personally spoke at the opening session of the new trial held at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The appeals court formally overturned Joan’s conviction on 7 July 1456. Isabelle spent her final years near Orléans, most likely in Sandillon, where her life came to a close in 1458."
#76
LakotaWolf (she/her) 21 hours ago
"A bridge in a small town in West Virginia had fallen into serious disrepair by the early 1970s, with missing planks making crossings increasingly dangerous. By 1974–75, the structure collapsed entirely due to wood rot. The town’s mayor repeatedly appealed to state and federal officials for a replacement, but no action followed. In 1977, the self-appointed mayor, John Robinette, took an extraordinary step by requesting foreign aid from the Soviet Union and East Germany to rebuild Vulcan’s bridge. That same year, Soviet journalist Iona Andronov visited Vulcan to assess the situation and meet with Robinette. Within an hour of the visit, reporters were informed that the state had agreed to act. The West Virginia Legislature approved $1.3 million to fund a replacement bridge, which opened in 1980."
#77
Phantom Phoenix 1 day ago
Once upon a time, a girl was photographed as she stood in front of a cabin. It's unclear as to why this is considered, in any way, to be a "Very Strange Tidbit About The Past" or a "Weird Thing About History"
#78
LakotaWolf (she/her) 22 hours ago
"Robin Ficker became famous for his intense loyalty to the NBA’s Washington Wizards, regularly heckling opposing players from seats directly behind the visiting bench at USAir Arena in Landover, Maryland. When the team moved to the MCI Center in 1997 and relocated him far from the bench, he gave up his seats in protest. Phoenix Suns star Charles Barkley admired Ficker’s ability to rattle opponents. During the 1993 NBA Finals, Barkley flew him to Phoenix and seated him behind the Chicago Bulls’ bench, though arena security removed Ficker before the end of the first quarter."
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What do you think ?
Gingersnap In Iowa 23 hours ago
Hmm...is it really difficult to perhaps cut and paste the descriptions of the pictures?
LakotaWolf (she/her) 21 hours ago
I try to take up the slack when the BP article authors drop it like this XD
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Chich the witch 23 hours ago
"We have some more photos". "Yeah? Well I'm tired S***w the headings. Nobody is going to scroll that far"
Janissary35680 18 hours ago
I think your explanation is the correct one, Chich.😄
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Gingersnap In Iowa 23 hours ago
Hmm...is it really difficult to perhaps cut and paste the descriptions of the pictures?
LakotaWolf (she/her) 21 hours ago
I try to take up the slack when the BP article authors drop it like this XD
Load More Replies... Chich the witch 23 hours ago
"We have some more photos". "Yeah? Well I'm tired S***w the headings. Nobody is going to scroll that far"
Janissary35680 18 hours ago
I think your explanation is the correct one, Chich.😄
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