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50 Odd And Interesting ‘Weird History’ Posts From This Account That Makes Learning Fun No Matter How Old You Are (New Pics)
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 | Facebook | YouTube | Andrew-Rader.com
This post may include affiliate links.
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#2
Leah Helbig 4 years ago
Our world was built from the back of the horse. They are one of the most important creatures who ever lived.
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.
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.
#8
Otter 4 years ago
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.
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.
#12
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.
#14
Chris Wade 4 years ago
I mean... As far as prison cells go, that surely isn't that bad, right? lol
#15
Chris Wade 4 years ago (edited)
Fast forward 82 years later and people moan about having to wear a cloth/paper mask on planes.
#19
judy baker 4 years ago
They build very few structures today that would last even half as long.
#23
#25
Ryan Deschanel 4 years ago
Cousins are nice, but when a little horde of bloodthirsty bolcheviks want tu slaughter your family, they are not here to help you.
#26
Kai Wee Toh 4 years ago
...and then they replaced the cocaine with something more potent and addictive - refined white sugar.
#28
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
And nearly 70 years later he's still waiting for her to step down.
#30
Julia Atkinson 4 years ago
Combines the pleasure of horseriding with the anxiety of being accidentally blinded by your mount
#33
MagicalUnicorn 4 years ago
well, that's basically only time of home i could afford, so they weren't that wrong
#34
Sarah Grape 4 years ago
I thought he said redcoats; though regulars make more sense, red was a popular color for coats
#35
Kirsten Kerkhof 4 years ago
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?
#39
#42
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 4 years ago
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.
#43
Wilf 4 years ago
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.
#45
lara 4 years ago
Nope, not until you admit that you used an abacus. THEN you are old.
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Sergio Bicerra Descalzi 4 years ago
And this seem the 5 1/4 ones, previous to them were the 8 inch ones. Never saw one, just new about them.
Load More Replies... K.Kobayashi 4 years ago
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).
Radek Suski 4 years ago
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
Queen Mab 4 years ago
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.
M O'Connell 4 years ago
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 4 years ago
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.
Sheila Stamey 4 years ago
I used one and you had to have a sturdy "lap", these things were the size of a suitcase!
clive apps 4 years ago
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.
bill marsano 4 years ago
The were called 'portable' but 'luggab;e' was more like it: these weighed in at about 30lbs.
bill marsano 4 years ago
Pretty sure it wasn't called a laptop but a 'portable.' That wasswiftly changed to 'luggable' by those who tried them.
Christine Packard Didier 4 years ago
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.
Eric Forster 4 years ago
In 1984, I worked for a civil engineering firm that had a Kaypro 2, It had a larger screen.
Mike Radant 4 years ago
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!"
Philly Bob Squires 4 years ago
I still have an old KayPro IV and a MicroBee. They all ran the CP/M OS.
P. Mozzani 4 years ago
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.
Lance d'Boyle 4 years ago
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.
Tim Douglass 4 years ago
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.
Philly Bob Squires 4 years ago
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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#49
Chris Wade 4 years ago
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.
#51
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
Just another example how over time cultures change. Today not wearing pants within the city limits is deemed barbarian.
#56
#58
Madison Sadler 4 years ago
Wow! That's really cool! I'm going to show this to my band teacher lol
#59
#61
Wilf 4 years ago
It was a photoshoot to promote the upcoming international tour. They're dressed as typical London city gents. This was basically the 'uniform' worn by city finance workers long after the rest of society swapped wearing morning dress with modern lounge suits. Remarkably, city workers were still wearing this outfit into the 1980s. Just occasionally you see some older gents still wearing it when they go up to their clubs. I've seen one or two in the last few years!
#62
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 4 years ago
The Antikythera mechanism. It was apparently designed to determine the times for the Olympics.
#64
#73
clive apps 4 years ago
Endeavour was one of the rejected choices for the original starship name
#78
Little Panda Bear 4 years ago
He was an interesting character, however he seems genuinely kind.
#82
Chris Wade 4 years ago
I'm willing to wager Robert started the whole Yeti/Bigfoot/Sasquatch craze.
#84
Tequila4Two 4 years ago
Wait, what? Where? I live my whole life in The Netherlands, first time I have heard of this.
#85
sofacushionfort 4 years ago
The origin of the name Case Western Reserve university in Ohio, originally in Connecticut's territory
#87
Chris Wade 4 years ago
I mean, my heart goes to him for losing his leg but, surely, this is weird haha
#92
#93
Thomas brennan 4 years ago
That tweet ain't quite right. The HMS Resolute was abandoned while searching for the Franklin Expedition. A US whaling vessel found the Resolute wreck and it was repaired and returned by the US. The desk was made out of the timbers of the Resolute as a thanks for the kind gesture.
#95
#96
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 4 years ago
Johnson always played a recurring joke, in which he invited someone for a ride and then drove into the water. The guest usually freaked out, because he did not know it the car was amphibious.
#100
#101
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Monday 4 years ago
Let's not forget the Great Molasses Flood in Boston in 1919. A molasses tank ruptured (it was overfilled if memory serves) and the resulting flood of molasses damaged buildings, sucked people under and coated everything in a sticky mess. 21 people died, many of them drowning in the thick molasses.
michael reid 4 years ago
Wich is an old english word for salt and there are lots of places ending with wich in England
Monday 4 years ago
Let's not forget the Great Molasses Flood in Boston in 1919. A molasses tank ruptured (it was overfilled if memory serves) and the resulting flood of molasses damaged buildings, sucked people under and coated everything in a sticky mess. 21 people died, many of them drowning in the thick molasses.
michael reid 4 years ago
Wich is an old english word for salt and there are lots of places ending with wich in England
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