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With real-life facts often being far stranger than fiction, there’s nothing like a good history book to get your noggin’ joggin’ and make you appreciate life from a whole different perspective. I might have started my love affair with history as a subject with the amazing Horrible History book series, but I’ve since then graduated to thick and dusty tomes.

However, I still have a yearning for the more fun and unusual aspects of history that first drew me in. And that’s where the Weird History Twitter page comes into play. A page with 172k followers that’s been active since September 2011, Weird History is the brainchild of Andrew Rader who does, well, pretty much everything: from book-writing to cool space stuff.

Have a look through some of the coolest recent posts made by the Weird History project, upvote the ones that you liked best, and later on consider absorbing some more delicious knowledge from Bored Panda's previous articles about the Twitter account here and here.

More info: Twitter (Weird History) | Twitter (Andrew) | Instagram | FacebookYouTube | Andrew-Rader.com

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Leah Helbig
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Our world was built from the back of the horse. They are one of the most important creatures who ever lived.

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Andrew has a PhD from MIT in long-duration spaceflight, is an expert in space exploration, and has authored a host of academic and technical papers. What’s more, he’s an avid writer, having published books for adults and children alike, and he creates tabletop games in his spare time.

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Hans
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That is an unimaginable long time, yet such a tiny fraction of how long life exists on earth...

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The Canadian, who now lives in Los Angeles in California, has also been extensively featured in the media, including in The New York Times and by Vice. And finally, adding to his great list of achievements, he’s a real trivia aficionado (even having taken home awards) and he’s the curator of the Weird Science account, too.

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Otter
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That might be because in the 1930s, people were still catching tuberculosis from cow's milk. Sick cows can transmit the bacteria through non-pasteurized milk, so if the hospital had its own herd then they could make sure all the beasts were healthy and not infecting the patients.

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Cip IESAN
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In the prehistoric times, the customer service complaint was a wooden club...

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Since 2014, Andrew has been working at SpaceX as a Mission Manager, while previously he had got 4 years of experience as a Spacecraft Systems Engineer at COM DEV. One of the coolest things about him (at least for me) is that he was a candidate for the Canadian Astronaut Corps back in 2009 and as recently as 2017.

What’s more, he was being considered as one of the potential candidates for a one-way mission to the Red Planet as part of the Mars One project in 2014. It should be clear by now that Andrews’s passion for science and history aren’t just for show—he’s dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and pushing the limits of mankind. And Weird History… it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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Cip IESAN
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The president and the prime minister of many states are not allowed to share the same aircraft. And, during the war, the medics weren't allowed to share the same foxhole.

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Chris Wade
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I mean... As far as prison cells go, that surely isn't that bad, right? lol

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Chris Wade
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Fast forward 82 years later and people moan about having to wear a cloth/paper mask on planes.

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J. F.
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And it took a long time to re-discover the need of taking vitamin rich food on sea travels

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Ryan Deschanel
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Cousins are nice, but when a little horde of bloodthirsty bolcheviks want tu slaughter your family, they are not here to help you.

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Kai Wee Toh
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

...and then they replaced the cocaine with something more potent and addictive - refined white sugar.

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Julia Atkinson
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Combines the pleasure of horseriding with the anxiety of being accidentally blinded by your mount

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Shannon
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's beautiful there. I visit it once in a while with my kids.

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MagicalUnicorn
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

well, that's basically only time of home i could afford, so they weren't that wrong

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Sarah Grape
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I thought he said redcoats; though regulars make more sense, red was a popular color for coats

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Kirsten Kerkhof
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A tendency to decapitate the pilot. How many people had to die before they concluded it was a design/idea fault and not just bad luck on the part of the pilot?

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Ozacoter
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Most english words have origins in other germanic or lating languages.

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Luis Hernandez Dauajare
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Fun fact: when Titanic sank, the White Star Company refused to pay officers and crew members for services provided during the sinking. And the family of one of the band members who died actually was charged for the loss of his uniform.

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Wilf
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In France they call it the "iron harvest". About 900 tons of unexploded ordnance is recovered every year. If you drive around the battlefields it is perfectly common to see a handful of old hand grenades or mortar rounds sitting on the verge at a farmers' gate, waiting for the bomb disposal people to come on their latest run to pick them up.

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Tequila4Two
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Back then, when the floppies were larger than the screen.

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Sergio Bicerra Descalzi
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And this seem the 5 1/4 ones, previous to them were the 8 inch ones. Never saw one, just new about them.

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K.Kobayashi
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Osborne went bankrupt because they made the mistake of showing off their new and improved model while they were still producing the original model, and the new one wasn't ready for production yet. People stopped buying the original model. This is now called the Osborne Effect (seriously).

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Tami
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I serviced those as a computer tech in the early 80s. It weighed over 24 pounds, definitely not a laptop, but it was portable...well actually lugable.

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Radek Suski
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It depends very much on the definition. But Osborne was not the first laptop (because it isn't a laptop yet) nor was it the first mobile computer because there were models developed earlier

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Queen Mab
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm old too. We had a Kaypro that looked exactly like this and used it regularly albeit slowly. It used large floppy disks. I'm horrified now that we got rid of it.

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J. F.
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Now the real question: Can the original Doom be played on it?

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M O'Connell
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Unfortunately, no. The Osborne 1 has a fixed character set, and only 4Kb of video memory. Hypothetically you could create an ASCII version of the game, but your framerate would be measured in seconds per frame, not frames per second.

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mcborge1
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The first portable computers like this Osborne 1 were called Luggables not laptops. The closest I got to owning a luggable was an Apricot XI. It used a little external crt monitor that weighed nothing and the main unit had a carry handle and sliding drive cover plus you could clip the keyboard to the underside of the unit. It came out 3 years after the Osborne 1.

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Cassie
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It wasn't a "laptop" it was a "portable computer". The keyboard snapped to the front/top and you carried it like a suitcase. It was barely portable considering they were freakishly heavy. Laptops were a nice advancement on the technology.

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Sheila Stamey
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I used one and you had to have a sturdy "lap", these things were the size of a suitcase!

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clive apps
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wasn't really a laptop. Heavy enough to need a desk for support. Also very unreliable, often had to reseat all the boards after moving them.

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bill marsano
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The were called 'portable' but 'luggab;e' was more like it: these weighed in at about 30lbs.

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bill marsano
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Pretty sure it wasn't called a laptop but a 'portable.' That wasswiftly changed to 'luggable' by those who tried them.

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Christine Packard Didier
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My ex mother in law worked in a bank in the late 80's and she brought one of these home occasionally to enter data, it took too long to do it all at work.

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Eric Forster
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In 1984, I worked for a civil engineering firm that had a Kaypro 2, It had a larger screen.

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Mike Radant
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I remember seeing a friend's new 286 computer, with a 40 mg hard drive and 16K RAM. I remember saying, "Wow, 40 megabytes of memory, you'll never use all of that!"

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Philly Bob Squires
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I still have an old KayPro IV and a MicroBee. They all ran the CP/M OS.

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P. Mozzani
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The Osborne sold for $1,795, in 1974. In today's dollars, that would be $2,136.47. Would love to have seen this monster fit on someone's lap.

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Lance d'Boyle
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My mom had one and I used it during undergrad days. I remember writing term papers and clicking print only to have the machine crash. I would start from scratch and rewrite the paper and the machine would crash again. I slowly learned to save my work but it was a blessing in disguise as it taught me the benefits of rewriting and in the end I had a tight well organized essays.

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Tim Douglass
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I loved my Osborne 1! It saw me through college and into a 15 year programming career. I literally cried when it was destroyed in a house fire. But calling it anything like a "laptop" is a gross misrepresentation, it was a portable, or more a "lugable" computer. I think it weighed around 35 lbs.

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Panda-riffic
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We had a Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80. What a monolith of plastic. Ugh!

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Philly Bob Squires
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A friend of mine gave me an old Lobo Max-80 (I still have it somewhere.) That ran CP/M, L-DOS and TRS-DOS. It had 8" and 5 1/4" drive systems.

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Otter
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

More beavers need to be relocated to the American West. By trapping water behind dams they make water tables rise, which helps reduce wildfires and increases reservoir levels.

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Chris Wade
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Surely a while after him the name "sandwich" stuck but people have been putting stuff between slices of bread (or variations of bread) for thousands of years.

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