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History Enthusiasts Are Sharing History Facts That Many People Would Find Shocking (50 Facts)
Interview With Expert
Even if you think you have a decent grasp on the past, chances are that you are still a little off here and there. Fortunately, through the vast resources of the internet, one can sit down and fill in the many, many gaps in their knowledge.
Someone asked “What’s a historical fact that would shock most people to find out?” and people shared their best examples. We also got in touch with archaeologist Ari Akkermans to learn more about how we see the past. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and share your thoughts in the comments below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The ancient Greeks, inventors of democracy, would elect their officials to one year terms. Each officials' finances were audited at the beginning and end of their term. If anything was amiss, they would be tried and executed.
Thomas Grant 1 year ago
Well this almost happens today. But without the execution. Or the successful auditing. Or, in many cases, the trial. Or the democracy. Or one year terms... huh...
Joe Reaves 1 year ago
In the US the election (campaigning, primaries, more campaigning, election, inauguration) takes at least 50% longer than the term length did in Greece! I don't like a lot about our UK system but they announced an election two days ago, it will happen on 4th of July, and barring a hung parliament (which would lead to a couple of weeks delay) the winner will move into Downing Street on the 5th. I couldn't put up with an American style system.
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Smiley Rie 1 year ago
Well that would definitely change the types of candidates for office 🤔 Would certainly fix the Dump corruption issue
jennifer brinkman 1 year ago
We need this in America...land of inopportunity, weakening democracy, weak or lack of health care, etc.
ninjaTrashPandaBoom 1 year ago
US here, our democracy works fine (as long as you are ultra-wealthy or a corporation and have purchased your politicians) and we have some damn fine, top-notch health care (with the monstrous, over-the-top bills to prove it).
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TheAmericanAmerican 1 year ago
That's what I dream of! 4 year terms for EVERY position with every and all finances fully audited yearly. And shady things in the audit? Off to prison you go. In a system like this only the people who actually want to SERVE THE PEOPLE THAT ELECTED THEM would run for office. All the sociopaths would stay the F*** away and our government would finally function the way it was intended!
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
Somewhere between the Ancient Greeks, who considered their political positions as being in service to the people, and modern day democracy, a lot has been lost in translation. Now we have "career" politicians who are in service to the lobbyists who give them the best gifts for their votes. Don't even get me started on all the insider trader these greedy sob's are protecting.
RELATED:
#2
Sharpshooter Annie Oakley had a stage act where she would shoot a cigarette out of someone's mouth. While she was touring Europe, Kaiser Wilhelm Il of Germany surprised everyone on a whim and insisted on holding the cigarette.
Ever the professional, Oakley shot the cigarette without harming the Kaiser.
Several years later WWI is underway and the US goes to war against Germany.
Oakley wrote a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm asking if she could have another try at that shot.
He didn't reply.
Lyoness 1 year ago
Whuh? She didn't miss, she hit the cigarette. Urban legend says he had it in his mouth but she absolutely blew the ashes right off the smoke in his hand. https://patch.com/massachusetts/westroxbury/history-i-never-knew-the-remarkable-annie-oakley
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Hilary Mol 1 year ago (edited)
When I was a kid and learning about WWI I remember the first time I saw a photo of Kaiser Wilhelm II. I thought it was upside-down, so I righted the book. It was the moustache that made me think the photo was printed upside-down. Ever since then, whenever I've seen a photo of him, I imagine some unnamed family member wandering into the living room while good old Will is reading the paper and just staring at him before saying, "You know, Will, you look ridiculous. You do know it looks like you put your face on the wrong way, right? And don't tell me 'it's the fashion,' because so are spiky things on helmets and THEY look like the business end of a Mullstock (trash stick)." (Edit because BP didn't like the little-kid version of the name Will. And a second edit because my fingers couldn't stop at WWI and insisted on typing WWII the first and second times I edited this. Sorry.)
#3
The world’s first programmer was Ada Lovelace in the 1840s. She was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.
Two programming languages were named after her.
🇳🇬 Asi Bassey 🇳🇬 1 year ago
More information please. Which programming languages were named after her? How did she program in the 1840s?
Remi (He/Him) 1 year ago
I would assume she programmed by pen and paper. She invented things like recursive loops a hundred years before computers. Fun fact: In the university we needed to code by pen and paper in exams as late as 1990s
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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
The fascinating thing is she was writing code BEFORE the invention of the general purpose computer. Babbage's Analytical Engine was never completed but it would have used her software.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
The computer language Ada, created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, was named after Lovelace. The reference manual for the language was approved on 10 December 1980 and the Department of Defense Military Standard for the language, MIL-STD-1815, was given the number of the year of her birth. -- Wikipedia
Dangerous Dave 1 year ago (edited)
A very interesting and innovative programming language. Native language support for concurrency - e.g., rendezvous, tasks; separation of interface from implantation,; templates, etc. We were compelled to use it by the US DoD for our systems but could wrap extant C/C++ components.
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Valek Fermiga 1 year ago
I never knew that was named after somebody, and if I did, I wouldn't have expected it to be a lady from the 1840s, so fair play, she's amazing.....
Bored Panda got in touch with archaeologist and historian Ari Akkermans and he was kind enough to share some of his thoughts. Firstly, we wanted to know what he thought many people got wrong about history. “I guess the most common misconception about the past, which can be seen especially in the way people approach archaeology and antiquity, the past isn't something that happened in a time completely separate from the present; a lot of the past is still in the present: Think of environmental pollution that happens hundreds of years ago, mass graves from the Neolithic, Roman temples or bomb shelters from World War I.”
“They all refer to events that happened a long time ago, but that survive not only as a memory, but in physical form too. Some things from the past of course have disappeared, but the entanglement between peoples, landscapes and things is so strong, that we are still living with a lot of the past, think about the wheel or agriculture. Another common misconception of course is that the past was better, and as Virginia Woolf notes, the past is always beautiful because it has time to expand.”
#4
America-centric: The first person to attend an integrated school only qualified for full Social Security benefits two years ago. People think about the legacy of Jim Crow and American racism as if it were the relic of a bygone era. It’s not. The people who were throwing rotten fruit and rocks at Ruby Bridges- the younger ones- are still alive. Many of them are still running the country. The older ones died recently and absolutely passed on their values to their children, who are probably even younger than Ruby. American racism is not “my ancestors”. It’s “my grandma”.
Rosecrucian Roeth 1 year ago
American Racism is still very much in vogue..........................
Laughing otter 1 year ago
Clarence Thomas wants to overturn Brown vs Board of Education, the decision that desegregated schools.
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Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
The thing that is so insidious about racism is that the roots go so deeply into the unseen psyche. It's often, at least in white families, so ingrained that they no longer recognize it. Many of us are unconsciously raised that way. I don't mean overt racism. I mean the subtle background. We're all for equality, but definitely not equity. Take my dad. He never had any inkling that he was prejudiced. But if we were at a restaurant and black people sat at the next table, he would automatically pick up Mom's purse. He never did that if the people at the next table were white. He would come home from work and tell stories about his customers. He would always say he had a black man come in. He never said he had a white man come in. I had a friend from school who was black, and I think that's what made me start seeing the background, and noticing such things in myself. A commercial for a high end computer showed a black family living in a standard McMansion. I remember being mildly surprised, because where I grew up, most of the black population was extremely poor. Well, why shouldn't a black family have a McMansion? I've tried very hard to challenge myself on assumptions like that. I hope I've been successful. I have many examples, from most of the white people around me, of what not to do.
Shane S 1 year ago (edited)
You made a wonderful point that I agree with totally and relate to. I think this is true of all unconscious bias though. Sexism, reverse sexism, racism, homophobia. I pride myself on being a very open minded person but I still catch myself having to unlearn biases that were passed down from my family. Are my parents racist? They would say they certainly are not. But if they got a resumé from a Tod Hamilton and one from Deshawnte Jackson, I can tell you who is getting hired….
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John Dilligaf 1 year ago
" It’s “my grandma”."....In all too many cases it's still "my mom and my dad", "my uncles and aunts", "my cousins"
flower petals 1 year ago
“My neighbor”, “my colleagues”, “my in-laws”.. Racism is like an illness the stricken will fight to the death to keep.
Hagebumi 1 year ago
As a German, I know very well feelings like: "not my ancestors - my grandmother". My grandfather was in the SS. Everyone around me either had a family member in the resistance or someone was in a concentration camp or someone was supposedly hiding Jews. (usually lies for protection) My family never said anything like that. I come from a Nazi family and my grandfather ranted against the Jews until his death. I can only try to do better and not be a Nazi or a racist.
tee-lena 1 year ago
I'm native and the amount of folks who have a great great Cherokee princesses in their families? So. So. Many
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Delta Dawn 1 year ago
Schools are very rapidly re-segregating, there was an article on it in Wapo or NYT just a couple days ago
Xenia Harley 1 year ago
Ruby Bridges got death threats as she walked into the school. She was afraid to eat her lunch! (Fearing people would try to poison her,) Her father lost his job as a way to try to stop her from being sent to school. I met Ruby Bridges, and she is a few years older than I am. She is a remarkable woman. Racism in America is, unfortunately, alive and well.
jennifer brinkman 1 year ago
A country built on racism and is still very racist and think denying truth will stop it. Conservatives/trumpersare the worst about it
#5
Woodrow Wilson was mentally and emotionally incapacitated by a massive stroke in October 1919, and his wife and doctors essentially ran the country until Harding took office in 1921. Some historians refer to Edith Wilson as "the first female president.".
Julie S 1 year ago
It's sad that she has proved that a woman is perfectly capable of running the country and yet America still hasn't actually voted in a female president.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
The majority of American voters did elect a woman in 2016. It was the Electoral College who nullified their choice.
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Marnie 1 year ago (edited)
Yeah, and no only shouldn't they, but they don't. Too many in the US think the president has far more power than the president actually does. And right now, too many are supporting a candidate for president who wants to have all the power.
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Oskar vanZandt 1 year ago
Often "the woman/women" behind the men are as- if not more- competent than those they care for, support and advise (pillow talk).
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
And the American public were none the wiser. "What would surprise most Americans today is how the entire affair, including Wilson’s extended illness and long-term disability, was shrouded in secrecy." https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/woodrow-wilson-stroke
Jayeff Vee 1 year ago
Good for the wife, and the country. Now, can we at least honor her by referring to her BY NAME? Ellen Louise Axson. was an accomplished artist but gave up her pursuits in order to support her new husband. She even learned German to translate for him.
#6
When the colosseum was used for fighting they used to line the stage with sand to soak up the blood. The Latin name for sand is harena, which means "sand" or "sandy space"...so that's why we call modern concert/show spaces arenas.
Betty Vanderhooven-SchmaaSchmaa 1 year ago
Europeans really have an advantage being so near so many different languages.
“Our childhood memories are probably not realistic, and because of the temporal distance, they contain a lot of projection. But that's also not to say the past was worse... So in fact it was neither worse nor better. We also tend to speak about earlier times using adjectives such as primitive or medieval, but those were very complex worlds that cannot be dismissed so easily. At the same time, for all our 'civilization', we're living through some of the most violent and unequal times in recent history.”
“To affirm that the past was neither better nor worse doesn't mean to cancel progress, which does exist, but never in linear form. It's difficult to get a timeline of human civilization because civilization isn't a stable concept. What might have been considered civilized in the 19th century, for example, colonization, isn't today. We tend to use certain markers to define the beginnings of civilization, especially architectural ones, because we're used to thinking of civilization in terms of monumentality, but this is a bias inherited from the classical heritage of Europe.”
#7
The Second Congo War, also known as Africa's World War was the deadliest conflict since World War 2 with over 5 million people killed.
Most people have never heard of it despite it ending in 2003.
Donkeywheel 1 year ago (edited)
« Most people have never heard of it despite it ending in 2003 » *in the USA. Where most people wouldn’t even be able to pinpoint the location of Congo (BC, RC, DRC, then or now) anyway. This war was intensively covered in world news everywhere else.
Gambit22 1 year ago
American here. I remember learning about the congo, and my school had a world geography class. These cheap shots at America are getting pretty old :P
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similarly 1 year ago
The war in the Congo in 2008, described as a "decade-long conflict", was deemed "Africa's Playstation War". A lot of electronics use an alloy called Coltan, derived from an element named (in a VERY dark irony) Tantalum. Due to demand, particularly for new phones and playstations, the price of Coltan jumped dramatically. Between 1999 and 2001, the price of Tantalum jumped from $49/pound to $275/pound (1 pound is about 0.45 kilos; 2.2 pounds to the kilo). Rebel groups seized tantalum mines and would kidnap children to work the mines because children were easier to control than adults and the mines could be smaller. The DRC has about 80% of the world's Tantalum and at one point 8 countries and 25 militias were involved in the conflict. Wikipedia says the war officially ended in 2003. However, google "Inside Africa's Playstation War". News articles tell a different story.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
Considering how many people think Africa is a country, is anyone truly shocked this horror continued without notice?
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
The number is about 5.4 million and not all of them were killed in fighting but also due to war related hardships like disease and starvation
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago (edited)
Probably because wars are so common in Africa that nobody really cares anymore. Currently there is a genocide on the horizon in South Sudan, with arabian groups oppressing non-arabian groups, only know this because there was a small news section about it
StPaul9 1 year ago
Because press can't get internet to report the story. No internet, no global coverage, no story.
Adam Jeff 1 year ago
No-one was getting their news over the internet pre-2003.Some specialist newsletters maybe but not as their main source of news.
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Kris Tyler 1 year ago
they must have some resource that's super valuable to the western oligarchy
Bartlet for World Domination 1 year ago
Yes, it's cobalt, and unless you own a Fairphone you're not as far removed from "the western oligarchy" as you'd probably like.
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David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
I just looked it up. This war has had more twists and turns than the first and second world wars put together. This story needs to be told - I reckon a 15 part TV miniseries would be needed. The Rwandan genocide was just the start.
#8
When the SS Britannia went down in the South Atlantic, a raft of survivors managed to get away. According to the men on the raft, there was one more survivor on the raft with them. But he was unfortunately pulled under by a **Giant Squid** which then returned and attacked their Lieutenant named Cox, who they managed to save before scaring the beast away. Their claims were called out as preposterous and made up when they returned home...until Lieutenant Cox got sick of being accused of such and went to see a local marine biologist at a college. The biologist validated Cox's claims as he had scars 1-1/4 inches in size, which definitely belonged to a 23-feet long squid. It is believed that this story is the only known substantiated report of death by Giant Squid.
Dragons Exist 1 year ago (edited)
Bruh BP you fúcking censored Cóx. It's a literal name. You also made me have to give it an accent to get around the censor
Board Pan, duh. 1 year ago (edited)
So distracting and unnecessary 🙄 over the top censoring
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Cat Noir 1 year ago
Im not allowed my own name anymore. Wow BP. This censoring has got out of hand. Get a grip.
Stephen Lyford 1 year ago
What boneheaded editor put a picture of an OCTOPUS with a story about a SQUID?
Lee 1 year ago (edited)
Probably the same one that thinks the legitimate name 'C*x' is a word that has to be censored.
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Beeps 1 year ago (edited)
Lemme just try something real quick: Scunthorpe Edited to say: oh so that is fine then?
Another Panda 1 year ago
Bored Panda, stop censoring! It’s childish, and gotten beyond stupid when names and legitimate words are censored.
#9
The United States, under the guise of providing free healthcare, intentionally left Syphilis untreated in African Americans in order to study the effects. This was done without their consent, and they were discouraged from going to any other doctors. Now people will be like "Oh of course they experimented on slaves!' No, this started under FDR in 1932, and went on until 1972.
tuzdayschild 1 year ago
Intentionally infected black men with syphilis to study its affect over a period of years.
Load More Replies... jennifer brinkman 1 year ago
America was born with racism and still is very racist. Disgusting ignorance!
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
As far as I know they didn't use this for every single African American but rather about 600 men. They told them they were giving them treatment but it wasn't the correct treatment and resulted in further health problems.
Pollywog 1 year ago
They were told they had bad blood but not what that meant. They were given a free meal on the days they had appointments and if they passed away their family would get $50. They were also blocked from joining the armed forces because they would've been given penicillin and the syphilis would've been cured.
Erica Dee 1 year ago
Anyone who says "Oh of course they experimented on slaves!' is deplorable
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago
The Tuskegee Experiments, and that was not the only controversial one. Many of the knowledge on how the body reacts to diseases and trauma are taken direct from Nazi or Japanese experiments' results captured after WW2. Dr. Shiro Ishi, from the unfamous Unit 731, was even given immunity by the United States for them.
Joe Reaves 1 year ago
Also bear in mind this didn't just affect the men they were experimenting on. Because they did not know they had syphilis they went on to infect their partners and those partners then passed in on in utero to their children.
Xenia Harley 1 year ago
America has a very difficult history, that some people want to disown! Look at Florida.
Wolf princess quinn 1 year ago
The US and especially whites suck! And I'm both. This is another depressing and embarrassing chapter in our existance
WonderWoman 1 year ago (edited)
sounds about USA - we think we can ace with impunity all over the world. we suck
Gambit22 1 year ago
We're working on it :P generalization only makes the other countries hate us more
Load More Replies...“There are some civilizations that did not leave grand monuments, but whose achievements are perhaps equally important or even more, than those of the Near East, for example the way indigenous people arrived in Australia from the Pacific during the Ice Age, long before navigation was invented. Another point of departure for civilization has been traditionally agriculture, and therefore sedentary life,” he shared with Bored Panda.
#10
Some Greenland sharks have been alive since before the U.S. became a country.
A̷͇̘̓͜l̷̼͇̣͒̌ͅȩ̷͍͙͗̅̀͊̏̾͘x̶̋̍ 1 year ago (edited)
I've been to cheese stores that opened before U.S. became a country.
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
As Steve Aylett says, we drink in pubs older than that.
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Betty Vanderhooven-SchmaaSchmaa 1 year ago
Americans are a mess because we really don't understand heritage.
Bell-icose 1 year ago
At the bottom of the ocean, at near zero body temp, completely blind because worms ate his eyes...for 500 years. I'd rather be in heIl with my back broken.
#11
Potatoes are native to Peru, not Ireland. Tomatoes are native to Mexico, not Italy. Macadamia nuts are native to Australia, not Hawai'i. Pineapples are native to Brazil, not Hawai'i. Beef cattle are native to India, not Texas or Argentina. Coffee beans are native to Yemen, not South America. Kiwi fruit is native to China, not New Zealand. Vanilla is native to Mexico, not Madagascar. Oranges are native to China, not California or Florida.
Freya the Wanderer 1 year ago
Also, according to legend, a goatherd noticed that his charges became more energetic after eating coffee seeds. Eventually he, or someone else, found the best way to get the "energy" from them was to roast the seeds, grind them up, and steep them in hot water. Here in Atlanta there are several cafes called Dancing Goat in honor of this legend.
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T J R 1 year ago
Many people. That's why there's the stereotype that Irish people love all things potato. Not quite sure how it originated though.
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Andrew Read 1 year ago
When I was a boy, we called kiwi fruit Chinese gooseberries.Also, I think beef cattle originated in Africa?
Lou Cam 1 year ago (edited)
Exactly this factoid is false. For instance, the ancestors of various cattle breeds in Europe were the aurochs which were wild and widespread across the continent 2000 years ago. Same with breeds in part of Africa.
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Remi (He/Him) 1 year ago
Chickens are originally domesticated jungle fowl from Southeast Asia. And they're related pheasants and partridges among other things
Delta Dawn 1 year ago (edited)
So my vanilla ice cream is sort of Mexican really… sort of explains why chocolate and vanilla go so well together, because the cacao plant is also native to Mexico
Swastik34 1 year ago
Ah yes the irony, India, where use or sale of beef (from cows) is illegal, is also the very place from where beef cattle varieties were exported to some foreign countries.........
#12
The US secretly injecting people (typically poor / minorities, including children and pregnant women) with plutonium and other radioactive materials, and then studying them for decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States#Human_radiation_experiments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_radiation_experiments
When they finally admitted it, the report was released at the same time of the OJ verdict to bury the story.
Betty Vanderhooven-SchmaaSchmaa 1 year ago
Whenever there's a "big" news story like when that submarine imploded or that bridge was hit, I always look around for whatever "real" news is happening.
Paddling Panda 1 year ago
"Wag the Dog" is an excellent satire film that presents this very scenario
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Sven Horlemann 1 year ago
God's own country. I am sure, all according to a devine plan only the ultra religious understand.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Also look up the HeLa cells. So far they seem to be immortal. They came (without her consent) from a woman named Henrietta Lacks who had cervical cancer. The cells are very hard to kill and multiply abnormally fast. They've been injected under the skin of unwitting women to see if they developed into a tumor (shocker- the cells grew fast and the unknowing victims of the experiments developed tumors where they were injected). They have led to so many major advances in science that I can't even mention them all here. Some are the Salk Polio vaccine, first cells successfully cloned, studying innumerable viruses, treating cancer, the use of dye to stain cells and an accident with the HeLa cells being mixed with the wrong liquid led to the discovery that humans had 23 pairs of chromosones. The Lacks family has finally gotten some recognition and compensation for the contribution their mother's cells have made to science, it only took between 60-70 years and a best selling book.
David Paterson 1 year ago
I'm totally surprised. Not so much that it happened but that the news ever got out. I take it that no-one died. For example, strontium-90 poisoning can be effectively halted with calcium supplements. Was the brain radiation dose more or less than that of a PET scan?
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brie sansotta 1 year ago
My mother and I are on a class action suit against the contractors (since you cannot sue the US gov) of the Hanford Nuclear Plant for the release of radioactive iodine starting in about 1945. The release was less through the years up until it ended in 1954. Thousands of pregnant mothers drank the milk of the cows which chewed the radiated grass of the radioactive iodine which had fallen from the sky. Over the years, thousands of thyroid cancers and related problems were reported as being due to this exposure.
“But there were so many other possibilities, Paleolithic peoples lived in so many different arrangements, in many different political and cultural systems. The modern world is far narrower, and frankly we seem to be stuck in a system that isn't working very well for most people, so to speak of modernity as the peak of civilization is perhaps foolish.”
#13
A lot of things women take for granted are fairly recent developments. Stuff like being able to have a credit card in your name. Buying a car or a house without a male cosigner. And it used to be extremely bad to be a divorced woman. I'm not talking about the 40s. I'm talking about the 70s-80s. Women weren't allowed to get credit cards or open bank accounts until 1974. Women got the vote in 1920. A lot of these vary by state. I'm sure there were states where women bought houses before 74 or had bank accounts. But it wasn't a nationally protected thing until 74. Heck the house I grew up in was bought in 74 by my mom. Coincidence?
John Dilligaf 1 year ago
My Grandmother marched in support of the 19th Amendment . One of my earliest memories (early 1970s) is my Mom pitching an absolute fit and storming out of a bank because they demanded that a male relative co-sign for her to open a checking and savings account. She was divorced and in her 30s. She later told me, she was go*damed if she was going to ask her dad (my grandfather) to sign. She went to three banks before one would open an account for her.
Lauren S 1 year ago
Do you remember the name of the bank that did allow her to get an account? Might be nice to support that bank if it’s still around today.
Load More Replies... Alewa 1 year ago
I do not take those things for granted. Also, raping your wife was legal in Germany until the mid-late nineties.
PFD 1 year ago
The common law exemption for marital rape was only definitively ruled against in the UK in 1991. (I'm not sure it had been used as a defence since the 1970s but very likely would have led to prosecutions not being brought.)
Load More Replies... jennifer brinkman 1 year ago
Conservatives are pushing this now. Women are the new slaves since it's illegal to have any others. They want women to be obedient slaves and whores to ignorant male children with no brains or balls. SCREW THAT!!!!!
Sue User 1 year ago
In the USA, prisoners can be used as slaves. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted". Coincidence that USA has such a high prison population.
Load More Replies... Delta Dawn 1 year ago
My mom was still required to put the date of her last menstrual period on job applications in the 80s because places wouldn’t hire a pregnant woman
Freya the Wanderer 1 year ago
I wonder how many people who supported not hiring mothers-to-be were "pro-life." Guard the fetus, but don't let its mommy get a job so she can support herself.
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Anna Ekberg 1 year ago
Yes and it really upsets me when people (especially women) say that we don't need feminism. We do need feminism, we still have a long way to go.
Nikole 1 year ago
I find it so disgusting when WOMEN are against feminism
Load More Replies... Breadcrumb. 1 year ago
Women were considered the property of men until very recent times. It still is true in some parts of the world but those women and girls are silenced so we forget.
Joe Reaves 1 year ago
When Margaret Thatcher was elected PM in 1979 she pointed out she had the ability to launch a nuclear strike on Russia, but she couldn't but a couch on HP without her husband's signature.
Fenchurch 1 year ago (edited)
When we were buying our house in 1995 UK. The sellers ( a new build company) wouldn't deal with me (female), without my male partner being present. Because it was better to deal with a man. F**k that noise. I was dealing with all things house buying related and we had several ridiculous meetings where they would speak to my husband in front of me, and he would turn to me to answer, because he had no clue. I would answer them and they would pretend I hadn't spoken until my husband repeated it. We still brought the house, but I made damn sure they did t get any tasty extra commissions they expected by supply us with the mortgage and insurance etc. - that was common practise then with first time buyers, it was thought to be too tricky for first timers to understand.
Load More Replies... Bill Swallow 1 year ago
And now the drooling knuckle-draggers want to return the country to 'The Good Old Days'.
Little Wonder 1 year ago
Late 1960s/early 70s for bank accounts in Australia. A woman could have a bank account before that, but only with the permission of her husband. First loan to a woman was 1971.
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Penny Hernandez 1 year ago
I was fortunate in holding a typically man's job the summer I was 18 (1959). I was driving a semi (tractor-trailer) on Long Island and in New York City (working for a man who, while appreciating my skills, wasn't above taking advantage of my age and paid me pauper wages). This did teach me that when I was looking for work I read both columns (Help Wanted Male and Help Wanted Female) and prepared me to convince potential employers that I could do the work.
Fenchurch 1 year ago (edited)
In the UK early 1990s I was working part time at a petrol station as a teen but needed more hours during the summer than they could give me. I applied for a job at a petrol station in the next town and was turned down because it wasn't a job for a weak woman, they needed someone who could work hard! FFS.
Load More Replies... #14
Jimmy Carter has been alive for 40% of US history.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
He was still volunteering at Habitat for Humanity in his 90s. Dude was 94 and still building houses. He's backed off since he into into hospice care but I wouldn't be surprised if he still shows up at jobsites with peanut butter sandwiches for the workers. God bless that peanut farmer.
Jane Hower 1 year ago
He's so fake!! OMG, used to carry his own suitcase to show what a find man he was - IT WAS EMPTY!! And he and wife NEVER gave coffee, etc to those guarding him at Camp David during the winder months like the Regans did.
Load More Replies... nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
In my opinion, Jimmy Carter is a decent human being. More so than any other president before or since.
Julia Cargile 1 year ago
He is the only president that had a conscience they rest are/were crooks.
Boop the Snoot. Pound the Paw. 1 year ago
Jimmy Carter has been the country’s best ex-president
Major Harris 1 year ago
president tyler, 1841-1845, born in 1789 had the moct children, 15 than any other president. his first wife died and he re married. because of older morals of very old men marrying and fathering children with MUCH younger women, pres. tyler still has a LIVING grand child! his youngest son was in his mid 70s during the 1920s, married a young woman and had three children with her. that son in 99 years old. one family spanned the entirety of the united states!
Robin Roper 1 year ago
He wasn't a great president, for a lot of reasons including the lose/lose options of dealing with the energy crisis, a crisis we in the US still haven't dealt with (we still love our oil) and he had a poor relationship with the Dems in Congress. He is a great human being; he had honor and integrity.
Kevin Hickey 1 year ago
In a symbolic gesture, Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. In another symbolic gesture, Ronald Reagan had them removed. People didn't like Carter because he told them the truth, and in the late '70's people didn't want the truth, they wanted a bullshitter, enter Reagan.
Load More Replies... Michelle C 1 year ago
I’m not a fan politically, but definitely rooting for President Carter to reach his hundreds!
Celtic Pirate Queen 1 year ago (edited)
He was also the first US President born in a hospital instead of at home. Love that guy! Roslyn was amazing as well.
G A 1 year ago
You just don't have much history to measure as a country, though. Although normally you do it by bananas.
ninjaTrashPandaBoom 1 year ago
Who cares? We cannot change history or when the US was created. The OP's comment is still valid.
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#15
Picasso, Bruce Lee and JRR Tolkien all died the same year.
Ellinor 1 year ago
But a great one for all of Picasso's wives, children, and entire entourage.
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Chewie Baron 1 year ago
Aldous Huxley and C S Lewis both died the same day as John F Kennedy, but barely got any coverage apart from a small paragraph in the newspapers.
ThisIsTheRealBruno 1 year ago
C.S. Lewis, John F Kennedy and Aldous Huxley all died on the same DAY.
Iron Penguin 1 year ago
A tragedy that denied the world a cubist masterpiece of Bruce Lee booting that Balrog to the head at the bridge of Khazad-dum.
“I would like to think a good bar for measuring civilization as a timeline I guess would be the beginning of art, or rather, the beginning of abstraction, when the human brain cortex was developed enough to process symbols. This moment took place during the Ice Age, between 100,000 and 12,000 years ago. All the great prehistoric art we have in museums comes from this period.” You can find more of his work on Instagram or his various sites.
#16
The year 536 was deemed the worst year to be alive. Volcanic eruptions caused prolonged dark sky for up to 18 months. This then caused a mini ice age, crop failures and plague over the next 10 years killing millions
Also the name Tiffany has been in use since the 1600s.
two-sided llama 1 year ago
You know guys I feel if we all come together we can beat that record.
flower petals 1 year ago
Try reading this as if it’s about one and the same event- “how the heck did Tiffany do that..?” 😆
Thomas Grant 1 year ago
I feel like covid jokes have been a little overdone. So i wont make one. But imagine i made the best one ever.
Diana Burnwood 1 year ago
I will remember that hilarious COVID 19 joke to the grave hahahahah
Load More Replies... Joe Reaves 1 year ago
In contrast to Tiffany, the name Wendy was invented by the author of Peter Pan.
Data1001 1 year ago
The name was not invented by J.M. Barrie, but it's thought that its popularity as a female name is owed to that book. For centuries prior to that, it had been a male first name.
Load More Replies... Chewie Baron 1 year ago
Actually Tiffany has been used as a name in England since the fifteenth Century.
Ouss Ben Aziza 1 year ago
Reminds me of the story of this poor guy... Imagine managing to outrun the Pompeii volcano lava , fire and scolding hot ash ONLY to be be hit in the back by a random boulder ... 101806118_...b9cf01.jpg 
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
Oh, ye of little faith. At the rate we're going, our imminent future on this planet will make the year 536 look like a walk in the park.
#17
Britain executed men as cowards during WWI if they had “shell shock” which is what we call PTSD today if they could not or would not fight as a result .
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
But, on the other hand, Scotland did some incredibly good work at treating shell shock post-1916. Look up Craiglockhart hospital, where they literally invented occupational therapy and pet therapy.
Lou Cam 1 year ago
"Happy Valley" as its called now sits on the remains of the Craiglockhart convalescent hospital and housed famous war poets as well as my great grandad for a bit. It's a nature reserve now and lovely place to visit. Shame that many of the patients were treated then shipped back to the front line though!
Load More Replies... Thomas Grant 1 year ago (edited)
"Stiff upper lip" mentality. WW1 was particularly brutal. Even by world war standards. The tactics of the military had in no way caught up to the weaponry and pretty much everything was an unsanitary bloodbath organised by members of the gentry who had less idea what they were doing than a kid on total war. Plus there were none of the issues with using biological weapons, so that would have been somewhat challenging.
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago (edited)
Lots of chemical warfare though, in fact devastating enough to prevent most nations from using them again in WW2
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Phil Green 1 year ago
There is a very moving memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, outside Birmingham, called "Shot at Dawn", to those who were shot for any number of reasons. I don't know anyone that has visited it, as have I, who can either talk when they are there, or are unmoved by such an awesome memorial.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago (edited)
Well, military commanders did not understand it. It was actually called "shellshock" as they believed it to be an acoustic effect on the brain from the constant explosions. Concept of trauma was not a thing yet, and the earlier examples of psychoanalysis were only developed by the 1920's, well after WW1. We now know that warriors of all ages had had them at some point, there are even medieval chronicles about knights "crying in their sleep" or "being startled by clanging metals".
#18
Columbus's contemporaries didn't criticise he because they thought he would sail off the edge of a flat earth; their criticism was that he was significantly underestimating the *size* of the earth's globe - and they were quite right, he was.
Stephanie Did It 1 year ago
The myth of a flat earth wasn't nearly as predominant in ancient times as it is claimed to be. The Biblical prophet Isaiah mentioned "the circle of the earth" not as a revelation, but as a known fact around 740 BCE (Isaiah 40:22). People have known the planets are round spheres for a long, long time.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
More people believe in the flat Earth NOW than even in history. Mainly because there are more people on the planet and there's always a small percentage that are going to believe the stupidest thing you can think of.
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Dread Pirate Roberts 1 year ago
Definitely not the only thing he should've been criticized for...
Terran 1 year ago
Good news, many contemporaries did in fact think Columbus was a bloodthirsty maniac.
Load More Replies... Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago (edited)
Columbus was an idiot. He was wrong about the size of the Earth and the route, plus he was using obsolete maps. That is why nobody wanted to fund his expedition in the first place. He even died believing he had gotten to Japan, instead.
Scott Rackley 1 year ago
We knew the circumference of the Earth two centuries BCE to within 3%.
Manana Man 1 year ago
Eratothenes calculated it by measuring the angle of the sun in two different locations.
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rmandevi831 1 year ago
In other words, Columbus thought the world was flatter than his critics did.
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago
And they were right, he used accurate arabian maps but didn't bother to convert their measurements to the european ones - without America being where it is they all would have been dead
#19
Sharks are older than the rings on Saturn.
Stephanie Did It 1 year ago
I keep seeing this so-called statistic, but still waiting to hear how they know the age of Saturn's rings. Or, you know, sharks.
PFD 1 year ago
Evidently you're right to be cautious of the Rings of Saturn statistic - it appears to be a well-known and hotly debated uncertainty: https://arxiv.org/abs/0912.3017 The youngest age estimate for the rings is much, much younger than the oldest shark fossils but the oldest is much older than life on Earth, so it depends on who's right.
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JL 1 year ago
Wouldn't it be cool if you zoomed in on Saturn's rings and they were just millions of sharks circling the planet?
T J R 1 year ago
THAT would be extremely cool. I wonder how many people we can get to believe that as a fact...
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Thomas Grant 1 year ago
Literal trees... i am now very sad there is not a type of tree called a literal. "Im just off to a literal forest"
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Khall Khall 1 year ago
How is this history? I don't think historians study sharks or planets...
Jess Smith 1 year ago
I thought this was saying "there exists an individual shark which is older than Saturn's rings". It didn't make much sense...
#20
Earth will never have (abundant) coal again. Coal exists because trees/plants evolved lignin but fungi did not evolve the ability to decompose lignin until millions of years later. Wood was just piling up all over the place for millenia, sometimes catching fire, sometimes getting buried & turning into coal.
Tabitha 1 year ago
People don’t realize that fossil fuels, minerals, etc are finite resources we have been extracting and burning—-and therefore, greatly depleting—-for centuries now. We will run out and it won’t be long before we do. So we should be switching to infinite energy sources, such as solar and wind. Problem is we have coal and oil companies wielding way too much power and squelching any research that proves their limitations, instead of embracing it and evolving into solar and wind energy companies. They will end up the same as the carriage makers and livery stables that didn’t retool to manufacture car bodies and convert to parking garages with the rise of the automobile—-and they know it. Only they’re not willing to give up the billions of dollars they’re making right now to spend a good chunk of it for that retooling. They will be as extinct as the dinosaurs who contributed to the raw materials they pump out of the earth.
Becky Samuel 1 year ago
The other thing that people absolutely do not understand is that there is no redo on the Industrial Revolution. The lack of readily available fossil fuels and the depletion of easily mined resources would make it 100% impossible for it to happen. If humanity goes dark for more than a few years, there's no reset switch that gets us back to where we are now.
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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
There's still more than enough coal to completely wreck the planet. It's the most destructive fossil fuel out there. I don't care how much we have left or how long it will last. Our planet can't handle us burning ALL of it. It's also just a really crappy fuel source. Low efficiency and really dirty. Dirty to mine. Dirty to handle and transport and really dirty to burn.
Verena 1 year ago (edited)
Same for oil and uranium. Everything that needs to be mined is limited in mass and location. Sunlight and wind belong to everybody and cannot be "emptied". The crazy thing about nuclear power is the limitation in time it is actually useful to produce energy. Fuel rods need to be exchanged with new ones every 4 to 7 years, but the "empty" rods require cooling down on location for years in separate pools before good to go for transportation to a dumping place and are dangerous to life at least 24.000 years.
Ace 1 year ago
I think you're missing the main point, which is not just that it's mostly been used up, but that the mechanism that created it could no longer be recreated, regardless of time.
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Cydney Golden 1 year ago
Oil companies don't want it widely known for obvious reasons, that fossil fuels are finite resources.
Rich Black 1 year ago
At current consumption levels there are more than 400 years of "recoverable coal". This is NOT a suggestion to use more coal, just a math call-out.
Alex Martin 1 year ago
The Earth used to have a much hotter and more dense atmosphere. The heat was caused by much larger concentrarions of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This density enabled large animals to fly. For hundreds of millions of years, carbon has been removed from our atmosphere by plants and stored as coal, oil, peat and other fuel sources through decomposition of plants. Burning these fuel sources releases this carbon back into the atmosphere increasing global temps.
Hiram's Friend 1 year ago
https://gizmodo.com/weve-been-incorrectly-predicting-peak-oil-for-over-a-ce-1668986354
Vicki Perizzolo 1 year ago
Same for metals...we've mined and refined so much there won't be any reachable for future generations
#21
Many people know about the Suffragettes who won the vote for some UK women in 1918. Many people don't know that prior to 1918 men did not have universal suffrage. 1918 is also the date which non landowning men got the vote. Prior to that the vote had been only for wealthy landowning lords, just 5% of the population. Over a period of the preceding 80 years concessions were slowly made to allow more men, and then some women to vote.
Strahd Ivarius 1 year ago
The right to vote was granted mostly because it was deemed wrong to deny it to people who just spent years fighting in WW I.
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Slapdash1 1 year ago
The reform act of 1832 extended the voting rights to about 20% of males. By the 1880s it was about 40%. Far from "only lords."
Lou Cam 1 year ago
Still, the upper and upper middle classes only. Your average working guy had no say in politics at all. Women, not at all.
Load More Replies... James Twong 1 year ago
It greatly annoys me when people say they didn't vote because there's no one worth voting for/they can't be bothered etc. The right to universal suffrage has been so hard won that it should never be taken for granted.
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
On exactly this basis, my grandparents used to vote for opposing political parties. They didn't support either, but felt it was wrong not to vote when so much of the world is still struggling for democracy
Load More Replies... Verena 1 year ago (edited)
And yet people choose to not vote, because of "I am only a tiny speck, it doesn't make a difference". Please realise that in democratic governments every politician was a tiny speck once, too. In the Netherlands 13,5 million of the 17 million inhabitants fulfill the requirements to vote (above 18 on the day of vote and Dutch nationality). These are 13,5 million specks, which in its totality do make a difference. Especially young people don't see the necessity to use their voice... in a country with 30+ parties to choose from, covering the whole rainbow of opinions, of which 20+ will get a seat in the parliament.
Fenchurch 1 year ago
As a women I know that women starved and died so I could vote. I always vote, not because I believe in the system, but to honour the women who came before me.
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Christopher Preston 1 year ago
They were different movements, if memory serves me right.
Load More Replies... geezeronthehill 1 year ago
And senators were not elected, but appointed by state governments. Not much chance of corruption there, eh?
martin734 1 year ago
Senators are still not elected in the UK, we don't have any, or state governments either.
Load More Replies... #22
We are closer to the time of the T-Rex than the T-Rex is to the time of the Stegosaurus.
Minecraft_Chicken (He/Chicken) 1 year ago
Cleopatra was closer to the iPhone then the great pyramids.
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago
By the time she was alive they had historicans that studied "Ancient Egypt"
Load More Replies... Thomas Grant 1 year ago
When the pyramids were being built there were still mammoths about. Probably not near the pyramids... but maybe 1 was on holiday...
G A 1 year ago
Well, in that film, 10,000 BC they used mammoths to build the pyramids. Mind you, it was complete and utter twaddle....
Load More Replies... Shirley Heyn 1 year ago
I just want to know why this skeleton appears to have 2 different sets of ribs. . .?
#23
That in 2006 the earth was hit by a gamma ray burst from a distant supernova that stripped away about 6% of our top atmosphere (its fine now). If it had been bigger it would've wiped everything on earth out (and by bigger I mean if it was 20-25%).
Iron Penguin 1 year ago
Found a possible source for this claim. If so, it's WILDLY exaggerated. On October 9, 2022 an unusually powerful gamma ray burst caused a disturbance in the ionosphere that was detectable with sophisticated instruments. Big news for astrophysicists, nowhere near a cosmic catastrophe. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Integral/Blast_from_the_past_gamma-ray_burst_strikes_Earth_from_distant_exploding_star&ved=2ahUKEwiE_6-P06mGAxVtATQIHebrDc0QFnoECCwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2mk6lrQz54AHNEUuaIE8Lo
Scarlett O'Hara's Ghost 1 year ago
It's the only other time the Aurora borealis has been visible as far south as ARIZONA! the most recent solar flare, 2 weeks ago, was bigger that in 2003, and I sat on my front porch, in Phoenix Arizona, while it was 98 degrees, watching the Aurora! It was amazing!! I never thought I'd really ever get to see them. But I especially didn't think I'd see them from my home!!!
T J R 1 year ago
It rained every night here so we weren't able to see them. I would still go out and look when the rain would stop, but it was still too cloudy :(
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tuzdayschild 1 year ago
I watch a TV show called How the Universe Works. What I learned is this: the earth is an insignificant little dot that can be obliterated any second. Great show though. I learn a lot of sciency stuff.
Shirley Heyn 1 year ago
And this was never blamed for "Climate change" instead of what all that stupid humans do . . . ?
#24
It took about 4 times longer to get from copper swords to steel swords, than it took from steel swords to atomic bombs.
james stevenson 1 year ago
over 2000 years from chariots to carts. less than 200 years from carts to supersonic jets
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
And a single lifetime to go from the first airplane to landing on the moon. 1903 to 1969. Only 66 years.
Load More Replies... Thomas Grant 1 year ago
And only 40 years from the creation of the internet to the founding of BP.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
Under the right circumstances, technological progress is a hyperbolically accelerating process curve. Asimov pointed out that his father had been alive to see the Wright Brothers' first flight, and Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Those two things were 66 years apart - not an extraordinarily long lifetime. Also - The Wrights flew in 1903, so as of this writing, we've had airplanes for 121 years. The B-52 first flew in 1952, so it's been going for 72 years. For almost 60% of the time we've had airplanes, there have been B-52s.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago
It took 200 years from the first manned flight in a glider to the first working airplane, but less than 70 years from the plane to landing on the Moon.
Skip Reynolds 1 year ago
That vertical black stripe at the base of the "stalk" (right side) is a battleship.
#25
Europeans are able to tolerate lactose better than most ethnic groups because our ancestors kept drinking milk even tough it would make them s**t their pants. Just too good to let a bit of shotgun s**t ruin it.
Surenu 1 year ago
Actually it's because the lactase persistence mutation proved to be beneficial in the European environment and was thus selected for. Same happened in West Africa around 10k years ago actually, so it's in no way unique to Europe
Lou Cam 1 year ago
Yes it's because the climate in Northern Europe in particular wasn't condusive to optimal vitamin D absorbsion. People with the mutation to allow lactose consumption into adulthood benefited from greater vitamin D absorbsion due to increased calcium intake. They had more surviving children than people without the mutation, hence the spread of lactose tolerance past weaning in this population.
Load More Replies... ThisIsTheRealBruno 1 year ago (edited)
Strangely, stupidly false. 1) They didn't wear pants. 2) Just because you drink milk despite having lactose intolerance doesn't mean you s**t whatever you're wearing. 3) Lactose-tolerant Europeans are descended from the people who DIDN'T get ill from lactose. The ones who DID get ill were more likely to die, and it's their missing descendents which are why there are fewer Europeans who DO get sick.
Auntriarch 1 year ago (edited)
Thank you Real Bruno, for explaining it concisely and without resorting to insult
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Bored something 1 year ago
Stupid genes, I have all European heritage to the best of my knowledge, my mum even grew up on a dairy farm, but I am still lactose intolerant.
Anna Ekberg 1 year ago
I read somewhere that a little over 80% of South americans are lactose intolerant. I never drink milk but i do eat ALOT of cheese, i love me some cheese. 🧀 😋
Queeqec 1 year ago
Cheese is free of lactose die to the aging/riping process
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#26
The first telephones didn't ring. Owners had no way of knowing if there'd be someone on the other end when they picked it up. It took a year or two to create the noise alert.
John Nelson 1 year ago
"Dear sir, we are writing to inform you that on the afternoon of Friday hence, we shall endeavor to speak to you via telephone to express our concern concerning your buggy's extended warranty."
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
...which is why Mr Burns uses it in The Simpsons.
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ThisIsTheRealBruno 1 year ago (edited)
Ironically, Watson (as in "Watson, come here!") created the bell, not Bell.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
Yesterday's version of sending a text giving the receiver a heads up that you intend to call them.
#27
Your ancestors did not eat purer food and the preservatives we have now are a thousand times more preferable to what went on before the food safety reforms of the mid 1900s to 1910s. Even in the so-called more pastoral times had no sense of germ theory. Your food - say, a loaf of bread - would be coughed on, sweated on, possibly stomped on or chewed up at some points (esp in bread baking, they'd stomp it down), throw chalk and other adulterants like metal powders in it, and bake it in a dirty oven with unwashed hands, and placed in open fly-ridden air for display and sale. Also, olives are only mushy and rubbery now because freshly canned olives gave so many people deathly food poisoning in the mid-50s, that they now cook 'em in the can like tuna or shredded chicken to avoid another disaster.
ADZ 1 year ago
I was always love idiots on paleo diets: "try my paleo cheese cake" C*** you need a brain not a diet.
Jill Rhodry 1 year ago
aka cringe - when hobbies or other life choices become part of their personality.
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Kate 1 year ago
The agricultural revolution was the worst thing to happen to humans' overall health, and especially dental health, ever. Also, I'm one of the anthropologists who thinks the agricultural revolution happened because of beer (you don't need huge stores of grain to feed a small group of humans, but you DO need huge stores of grain to make beer).
Papa 1 year ago
If I'm wrong, please explain why, but I'm pretty sure that without the agricultural revolution modern society couldn't exist, because we'd need a much higher percentage of the population directly involved in food production.
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Undercover 1 year ago
As my dad was a child he was told, that by eating moldy bread he would get a nice singing voice. Yes, it was to trick kids into eating moldy bread because people couldn't afford to waste food. This was around 1950 in the Alps, by the way.
Auntriarch 1 year ago
Goodness me! That makes the crusts=curly hair lie look tame
Load More Replies... Michelle C 1 year ago
That’s not entirely true- people used heat, salt, vinegar, wine, oil, underground burial (ex: kimchi), snow, and numerous other sources of preservation to keep food fresh and safe for consumption. The problem with freshly canned olives was, in part , not being careful about the use of lye as well when lye became a useful tool in that respect.
Breadcrumb. 1 year ago
I've been into the evolution of teeth recently and went down a rabbit hole on YouTube about how our ancestors had straight teeth and less dental problems. Our cooked soft foods have changed the shape of our jaws. Just wild.
Jess Smith 1 year ago (edited)
Cooking did far more than that. Cooking (using fire) did so much for humans, it would not be a stretch to say the harnessing of fire was the most important discovery ever made by any hominid (member of the genus Homo). Ever. Foods were safer (nothing becomes more toxic if cooked, lots becomes less toxic)! It helped social structures form, since fire is naturally a gathering place! But its most important aspect is that fire 'pre-digests' food for you, releasing calories. So our guts and stomach could become a lot smaller and consume less energy, which meant our brains could get larger and consume more energy. The Smithsonian claims that brains increased quicker from ~2 million-800,000 years ago (YA), and the fastest from ~800,000-200,000 YA. (humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/brains). Some quick googling suggests that fire was harnessed about 800,000 YA, possibly 2 million YA. Without fire, we likely would not be nearly as smart, social, etc as we are. (Edit: deleted a sentence, added a period at the end.)
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Riley Quinn 1 year ago
I don't refute this information, but from my perspective, food flavor has gone downhill. I know what vegetables and fruits and farm raised meat is supposed to taste like, but it's a rarity to find anything like it in the average grocery store. And please don't mention organic foods because the average person can't afford that luxury.
Sue User 1 year ago
It was bad. Then we got fire and it was better. Then we got mass produced food and it got bad again. So we passed laws to make food safer. And the in USA, companies becane powerful and food safety is at risk again. Two steps forward, one step back.
T J R 1 year ago
Everyday there's another article about a company or companies with major recalls due to salmonella and listeria contamination. It's been ridiculous the amount of foods (human and pet) that this keeps happening to.
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Liam Farranree 1 year ago
Also for thousands of years flour was made by grinding grain with stone, which meant bread would contain tiny fragments of stone that would damage the enamel of peoples teeth and in Europe and Asia lead was used to make cookware and waterpipes which would cause rampant lead poisoning.
Breadcrumb. 1 year ago
Lead used to be in everything. Gasoline and paint. I was recently introduced to the term "boomer stare" a reference to lead poisoning that some baby boomers were exposed too.
Load More Replies... #28
People used to get their feet X-rayed at the shoe store to check their shoe fit.
Penny Hernandez 1 year ago
I remember that when I was a child, getting my feet x-rayed in the shoe store.
Manana Man 1 year ago
Some of those machines are still around, just not in use. There are other similar stories about the early days of atomic energy when people just didn't realize the dangers, like the women who painted the numbers on glow-in-the-dark watches.
Risa 1 year ago
My mom remembers her and her brother playing with those machines in the store, x-raying their feet. Then one day all the machines quietly went away. I remembered this story when they briefly had everyone going through x-ray machines at the airport. I refused to go in them and had them screen me by hand instead. Then one day all those machines quietly went away.
brie sansotta 1 year ago
Yeah, I also had it done. Can you imagine all the radiation the shoe clerk received from doing that to all their customers?!
#29
Within a single person's lifetime, we went from all transportation being by horses, ships, and trains, to landing a man on the moon.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
True. A couple of my grandparents lived long enough to see this transformation in transportation.
Trisec Tebeakesse 1 year ago
My grandfather was born in an agrarian society in the Philippines (1895). Man walked on the moon when he was 74.
Jane Hower 1 year ago
I watched the moon landing with my grandmother who had been courted by grandpa in a horse and buggy. Her lifespan covered a huge amount of change. WOW
#30
Did you know that during the 17th century, wealthy Europeans would consume parts of mummies for medicinal purposes? Yeah, they actually believed that mummy powder could cure everything from headaches to stomach ulcers. Imagine reaching for a jar of ground mummy remains instead of aspirin!
Dread Pirate Roberts 1 year ago (edited)
So technically, back then, rich Europeans were cannibals 😳
geezeronthehill 1 year ago
Mummies were so common in Egypt that during the European colonial period they were broken up and burned to power steam locomotives.
G A 1 year ago
And plowed into agricultural land as fertiliser. A lot of those were millions of cat mummies.
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Veronica Jean 1 year ago
Oh, oh pick me! Pick me! I have so much useless knowledge about this! THIS ISNT THE HALF OF IT THEY ALSO lined up when a criminal was executed to try to drink his freshly executed blood. In fact, we were doing this in Europe up until the same year the boy scouts of America were founded. After the criminal was executed, the Executioner was allowed to remove the body and partition out its parts for sale as healing to ailments. It's called medicinal cannibalism, and it's been around for a very very long time. Look it up, it's a worthy rabbit hole to scurry in.
T J R 1 year ago
I'm nervous about going down this rabbit hole...it sounds both intriguing and disgusting...
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#31
Hitting children in school was still legal when I was there and I'm only 43.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Same. My grade school principal used to paddle me and lock me in a supply closet. I really hope he's dead.
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Insomniac 1 year ago
Yup. Used to get the strap at school. Then go home to get beaten for getting the strap. Usually for "causing a fuss" (melting down) in class or not getting myself organized and finishing my work on time. I had undiagnosed AuDHD. My parents still refuse to acknowledge what's why I have CPTSD.
AnonymousApple 1 year ago
What blows my mind is that so many people still today think hitting a kid - under any circumstances or in any context - is okay.
Dawnieangel76 1 year ago
There's a difference between spanking & beating. I experienced both.
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CD King 1 year ago
My elementary school had a priest as the principal and nuns as teachers even though it was not a catholic school. It was a public school on a military base in eastern Canada. Some of those nuns got great joy smacking children in kindergarten, grade 1 and 2 with those long, metal edged rulers. I’m only 50….
María Hermida 1 year ago
I grew up in a developing country, and hitting kids at school was totally forbidden. I never saw it or heard of it. I'm 56.
Trophy Husband 1 year ago
My second grade teacher had a paddle... And used it on me enough times to make one wonder if it was an effective deterrent.
M F 1 year ago
My school had a paddle and would absolutely beat kids with it. I'm also 43. It's also still legal in some states. "In 2014, a student was struck in a U.S. public school an average of once every 30 seconds. As of 2024, corporal punishment is still legal in private schools in every U.S. state except New Jersey, Iowa, New York and Maryland, legal in public schools in 17 states, and practiced in 12 of the states." So yep, still legal.
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
In 1986 it was banned in the UK in state funded schools and then in 1998 banned in private and independent schools as well. In the USA it depends on state. New jersey banned corporal punishment in schools in the 19th century but there are still 8 states that allow it today
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
The states where it's still legal are: Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, mississippi, Georgia Louisiana and Tennessee. (Bear in mind that I used chatgpt to find that and it was last updated in Jan 2022 so that might've changed
Load More Replies... #32
Approximately 8% of Canadians were enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I.
That isn't 8% of eligible Canadians, or 8% of Canadian men; that's 8% of the entire population of Canada. If a similar proportion enlisted in the United States today, there would be 26 million people serving in the US Armed Forces.
Delta Dawn 1 year ago
That’s 10x the current size (relative to population) of the US armed forces
marianne eliza 1 year ago
I like the idea of mandatory military service. The kids learn a lot that is very helpful in adulthood. Then go to college or put their skills to work to industries.
tee-lena 1 year ago
If my country didn't like invasions so much I'd agree. However, I'm from the US and we do not need more military personnel
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Lex T. (Fiendish) 1 year ago
If everyone is eligible to be enlisted, it *was* 8% of those eligible.
Robin Roper 1 year ago
We better hope there isn't another WW, because young people age 18-16 will not volunteer. At least that's my opinion.
KillerKiwi 1 year ago
It’s true tho… I live in a fairly conservative state (Utah), due to its large population of Mormons, and when our history teacher asked us if any of us would consider enlisting, no one raised their hand. What we’ve got here is an entire generation of draft dodgers. 😜
Load More Replies... #33
Napoleon was actually 5 foot 7 inches not 5'2.
geezeronthehill 1 year ago
British disinformation to make him seem less legit. Folks subconsciously want taller leaders.
Jill Rhodry 1 year ago
It shows how well propaganda can work when 200 years later the myth is still considered as fact.
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Dragons Exist 1 year ago
I think it's something about how his body guards were much taller than him
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago
The origin of this is actually a conversion error. Napoleon was reported to be 5'2, but those were *French inches*, which were 2.7 cm. The British inch is 2.5 cm. French revolutionaries created the Decimal System to avoid those errors, precisely, and to remove all references to monarchies, since inches were literally the size of the thumb of a given king.
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
Depends on how you measure it. He's 5ft 6 or 7 in french measurements at the time but converted to English measurements he's 5ft2
Stephanie Did It 1 year ago
The French inch, as a unit of measurement, was not the same as the English inch and this added to the confusion.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
History is written from the perspective of the victor, so a lot of the historical documents we read/study were grossly one-sided.
Major Harris 1 year ago
the late actor, renee auberjenois, "chef louis, little mermaid" and "odo, star trek deep space 9" was the great great nephew of napoleon through napoleon's younger sister, caroline. she married his general, joachim murat, hence renee's middle name, of murat.
#34
The tram was invented by a Mr. Train
King George III was personally *against* the Stamp Act, and in NY a statue was erected of him in thanks for his role in appealing it
Nelson Mandela was listed as a terrorist threat (and remained on the terrorist watch-list) in the USA up until 2008.
geezeronthehill 1 year ago
If there was any symmetry to the universe, the train would have been invented by Mrs. Tram.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
You're welcome to take a TARDIS back and try to convince George Stephenson to change his name and have his wife file the paperwork.
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calvin and hobbes 1 year ago
i dont think anybody cares, but that is the number 2 tram in Budapest at the Kossuth Lajos stop. (near the parliament)
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago (edited)
He invented the flushing toilet. Interestingly, the term "cr*p" for faeces predate Thomas Crapper by several centuries.
Load More Replies... Another Panda 1 year ago
What we don’t learn about is that Mandela did set off a bomb once. That’s why he was jailed.
Auntriarch 1 year ago
He did indeed. The ANC was founded early in the century on non violent principles. Sadly it didn't work that way.
Load More Replies... flower petals 1 year ago (edited)
2008…?! Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1993.. 🤦🏻♀️🥺
G A 1 year ago
That's if you aren't one of the halfwits who believe he died in prison and was never SA president!
Load More Replies... StPaul9 1 year ago
Swansea and Mumbles Railway 1805. A tram-like process was in a German quarry in the 1500s to operate the mine carts. Train modernised it, but it was around before him.
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
The Ancient Greeks had trams. A cart on tracks, pushed by slaves. Hiro of Alexandria also invented the steam engine, but nobody thought to combine the two, possibly because when you're got slaves doing the work you aren't too concerned about making labour easier.
Load More Replies... Shirley Heyn 1 year ago
What does King George III and Nelson Mandela have to do with the pictured Tram. . .?
Gwen Feldman 1 year ago
Also, the CIA was responsible for the arrest of Mandela - the trading of info with white ruled South Africa. And thank the Red Cross for going to world court to have Mandela moved from the prison hellhole Robben Island after 18 years to a mainland prison to serve 9 more years before release. Also, thank the Red Cross for helping/smuggling NM get his manuscript - the long walk home - out of the heavily guarded prison. Visit Cape Town and Robben Island -- while you have the chance. You won't regret it.
#35
A military plane carrying two nuclear warheads broke apart and crashed in North Carolina. The state would have gotten nuked if it weren't for a single safety switch preventing detonation. These nukes were bigger than the ones we used in Japan.
Read up on the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash.
ThisIsTheRealBruno 1 year ago
The state would've gotten nuked except for the fact that nuclear bombs are not designed to go off on impact. It is so difficult to explode a nuclear bomb, that another, more massive bomb is actually needed to detonate the nuclear bomb.
Kate 1 year ago
Yes, one of 32 "broken arrow" incidents (broken arrow = where'd that nuke go?).
ninjaTrashPandaBoom 1 year ago
Exactly, vix is wrong. source: https://www.atomicarchive.com/almanac/broken-arrows/index.html
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Víctor Manuel Calatrava Gallardo 1 year ago
An American nuclear bomb crashed in a beach in Spain (Palomares) USA army denied the incident until a fisher found it. Then they proceeded to retrieve it, not because it was dangerous, but to avoid Ussr to catch it
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago (edited)
There was an incident over Spain, where a B-52 lost 4 nukes with 2 of them being damaged and leaking radiation in 1966 (No detonation)
Zaach 1 year ago
One of the first jets with after-burners fired its gins, kicked in the after-burner and shot itself down
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
... Not the first party-goer to shoot themselves down with their own Gin.
Load More Replies... Dread Pirate Roberts 1 year ago
I just heard about this a few nights ago on the history channel O_o
Dangerous Dave 1 year ago (edited)
There is an outstanding book (and subsequent PBS documentary) on, amongst other topics, this and other accidents involving US nuclear weapons titled “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety” by Eric Schlosser. The controls on these weapons were non existent initially and flawed for decades. WRT the Greensboro incident, by 1961 there were improved switches, but declassified analysis made public in 2013 showed “that one of the bombs was judged by nuclear weapons engineers at the time to have been only one safety switch away from detonation, and that it was "credible" to imagine conditions under which it could have detonated.” In the book, Schlosser describes how close these incidents came to disaster. Related, Russian launch detection systems (those that could trigger a launch on warning counter strike) are well known to be flawed and have almost triggered a nuclear war - take a look at The Man who saved the World” (Danish documentary).
Dangerous Dave 1 year ago (edited)
And, recommend the recently released, very good and chilling book “ Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobson. Addresses both the fragility of command & control technology and of the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) deterrence strategy. Not a feel good read, but a well researched and compelling read.
Load More Replies... #36
The fact that sturgeons survived the fall of the meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs, and have not evolved in any way since then.
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
Bollocks. It is literally impossible for them not to have evolved since then. Their *body type* might not have changed, but their immune systems, in a constant war with ever-evolving microbial life, will be bang up to date.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
According to Brandeis University: Roughly 150 million years ago, they settled into their current size, shape and physiology and haven't changed their form much since. Whereas a new study by University of Michigan researchers "reveals that in at least one measure of evolutionary change—changes in body size over time—sturgeon have been one of the fastest-evolving fish on the planet." As for their immune systems, they have evolved in four areas: receptors that recognize pathogens, genome duplication has led to many evolutionary trajectories in immune genes, and serum amyloid A (SAA) is upregulated in the livers of Russian sturgeons when challenged with pathogens.
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#37
The last use of the guillotine in France and the release of the first*Star Wars* movie occurred in the same year - 1977.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
As long as 27 US states insist upon capital punishment as a deterrent, the guillotine should be brought back since it's far more humane than lethal injection.
#38
The unfair taxation the US revolted against was actually very fair and only a fraction of what British in other colonies were paying.
Jess Smith 1 year ago (edited)
It was: 1) that we had a free press that could distribute information, 2) we weren't being allowed to steal (even more) Native land. That latter bit is often forgotten, but here's a quote from the Declaration of Independence: "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." And very few people could've voted! The women (50 percent) couldn't, nor could male slaves (about 9 percent of the population). I can't find data on landowners, so *I SUBBED IN AN EASIER NUMBER, THIS IS VERY ROUGH AND QUITE POSSIBLY WRONG* I tried using the 1900 landowning percentage - slightly above forty-five percent. By this estimate, about 19 percent of the population could vote. Data source: census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-owner.html. *TL;DR* It's a bit weird to fight for 'representation' or whatever while denying over half of your population the vote. So either they were shameless hypocrites, or they had other motives...neither of which is a very flattering portrait. (edit: I just realized you could use editing to get around post limits, which is nice!)
Load More Replies... Rosecrucian Roeth 1 year ago
Ah yes, the infamous Boston Tea Party. Oddly enough, ever since, the city of Boston has been steeped in history............................
ThisIsTheRealBruno 1 year ago (edited)
FFS, read the Declaration of Independence. 90% of it is a list of the grievances. But even on the matter of taxes: It wasn't the size of the taxation, it was what was taxed. The Stamp tax was meant to put the independent press out of business. Basically, the taxes were meant to stifle dissent The forced involvement in the 7 Years' War meant colonists died for a war they didn't want, which also put an emnity between the colonists and many American Indian nations which had not existed previously (the emnity that is, not the American Indians), so the taxes' justification (making the colonists pay for their theater of the war) was particularly obnoxious. Tone deaf? Yeah, The colonies had a third the population of Britain at the time, so they were basically ruled as a foreign-occupied dictatorship by lords who didn't know or give a f**k what was going on. And this was after they had been pretty much left to their own devices since the bankruptcies of the corporate charters 130 years earlier.
Charles Kormos 1 year ago
Yes, a bunch of old, rich, white guys who didn't want to pay their taxes created the USA. Today, same.
Travelling Stranger 1 year ago
they rebelled because they had no representation in british parliament and their motto was "no taxation without representation", which is what they considered unfair, not just the rates
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
Not a valid argument. Just because Britain treated their other colonies unfairly was no reason for Americans to accept it.
#39
We put man on the moon before wheels on suitcases.
Justin Tyme 1 year ago
But we still haven't put wheels on astronauts or suitcases on the moon.
Katrina Nixon 1 year ago
Too bad. Suitcases with wheels would have been an epic thing to show off on the moon.
jennifer brinkman 1 year ago
Still no real proof we ever went there. Why haven't we gone back??
#40
The British pet massacre. In 1939, about 400,000 cats and dogs were killed in order to prepare for World War II food shortages. This was approximately 1/4 of the pets in England.
Tabitha 1 year ago
Rather than have them be abandoned, or die in bombings, or starve and be abused living on the streets, or be killed for food. Tough decision.
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Pam 1 year ago
There were MASSIVE food shortages in Great Britain during WWII. They are by no means a self sustaining country and the Germans were sinking more cargo ships than could get through. During the war and for years after they had very stick rationing . The heart breaking culling mostly done in city areas where there was just not enough to go around.
Becky Samuel 1 year ago
To counter this, the culling was disproportionately skewed towards 'German' breeds like the dachshund or the German Shepherd, which were viewed as 'unpatriotic'. They even renamed the German Shepherd as the 'Alsatian' after the war as an attempt at repopularising the breed.
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Riley Quinn 1 year ago
As heinous as this situation was, if I had to choose between peacefully euthanizing my pet or losing them to the ugliness of war, I'd euthanize them.
DC 1 year ago
If I'd ever fight in a war, the main reason would be to return home to my cat. Regardless of who's the enemy, killing my cat would make me sabotage everything I can to lessen the chances of winning the war. I'd rather be governed by barbarians with Gina sleeping along my leg than electing who governs my the country my joyless, catless life is to be suffered in. Fück this!
#41
The United States government intentionally poisoned 10,000 people by spiking the alcohol they drank during prohibition.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Just to clarify, alcohol was still needed for medical and industrial purposes. To prevent people from drinking this alcohol it was "denatured". The alcohol we drink is ethanol. It denatured by mixing it with methanol and isopropyl alcohol to make it toxic. Those alcohols have very similar properties to ethanol and are extremely hard to seperate. People tried anyway. Prohibition really was one of the dumbest things the USA has ever done and that's a very long list.
ninjaTrashPandaBoom 1 year ago
Exactly. They were not intentionally poisoned by the government, they were just the alcoholics who drank the denatured alcohol (or an attempt to separate the alcohols) in their desperation to get anything with ethanol in it. And yes, prohibition was idiotic.
Load More Replies... Ace 1 year ago (edited)
Not quite as it sounds. Alcohol was still produced for industrial purposes so in order to make it unpalatable a proportion of methyl alcohol was intentionally added. The poisonous nature of it was not the intention, the fact that some people still drank it despite its foul taste is not really the fault of the government. Anyone who's smelled methylated spirits will know what I'm talking about.
Debby Ryan 1 year ago (edited)
To All the people saying the the USA has a agenda and starts wars for no reason. What county doesn't have a agenda and also to say everyone in the USA is essentially cancer is seriously a a*****e move . Last thing it's those same people who disparage everything we do like why don't we help these people or when we do the say we have some hidden reason 😉 anyway vent over I'm just glad 😊 most people on this site are nice people edit my phone is broken at the moment do im borrowing one so my opinion might not be the same one as this account have a good day or night
Manana Man 1 year ago
The US doesn't start wars for no reason. It starts them for stupid reasons. There's a big difference because the stupid reasons usually seem smart at the time, even to people in other countries. Then in hindsight later we figure out it was stupidity and lies.
Load More Replies... Steve Hall 1 year ago
They are still poisoning all alcohol that isn't made specifically for human consumption.
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
That was intended to stop people from drinking the alcohol not to actually harm them for no reason
Delta Dawn 1 year ago
It sounds like they poisoned alcohol so people wouldn’t drink it but people did anyway… that’s different from intentionally feeding someone poison
Auntriarch 1 year ago
Also bootleg alcohol is likely to be dangerous anyway, without it being intentional, many people died from that too
Load More Replies... Gwen Feldman 1 year ago
Makes me think of paraquat - the poison some states sprayed on marijuana crops to deter usage.
Ąåřţđęşịɠŋȿ 1 year ago
not all of them survived, either. Save 'em by killing 'em. There's a policy for ya. Right out of the GOP play book.
michael Chock 1 year ago (edited)
The US was created to protect the wealth of the founders. Those policies are still going strong. They wanted the population to buy "medical" alcohol because too much profit was lost to homebrewers.
#42
George Washington’s dentures were not wooden, but were crafted from various materials, animal teeth, and the teeth of enslaved people.
Justin Tyme 1 year ago
A set of his dentures are on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan.
JammaCoast2Coast 1 year ago
Why are people so fascinated by his teeth? Legit question, I'm genuinely curious
Nika the Great 1 year ago
I saw a set of his dentures at his estate at mount vernon. Very cool place, check it out if you can!
glowworm2 1 year ago
That’s where I saw them as well. It had a sign telling us not to photograph the president’s dentures.🤣
Load More Replies... _physically_insane_(he/him) 1 year ago
Did they yank the teeth out of the people’s mouths to make George Washington’s dentures?
KDS 1 year ago
Well from what I remember most dentures were made from the teeth of the deceased, soldiers mainly.
Load More Replies... Manana Man 1 year ago
Teeth were bought and sold in those days, and also removed from corpses. Teeth were sold by both slaves and free. Whether or not Washington's had teeth from slaves is unknown.
#43
Constantinople, and thus, the Roman Empire, fell in 1453. There is a 16th Century Spanish explorer named Juan de Fuca who is credited with exploring the strait that borders Vancouver Island, Canada, and Washington, USA (now called Juan de Fuca Strait). Juan de Fuca is a Hispanicization of the Greek name Ioannis Phokas. His grandfather fled Constantinople and his family eventually ended up Spain. This means an actual descendent of the Roman Empire was exploring North America.
ThisIsTheRealBruno 1 year ago
My wife explored North America with me last summer. She's an actual descendent of the Roman Empire.
Delta Dawn 1 year ago
Pretty sure that was the Holy Roman Empire which is not the same as the OG Roman Empire
John Dilligaf 1 year ago (edited)
Constantinople was the capitol of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire (330 AD - 1453 AD). It's people spoke Greek, but they considered themselves, and described themselves, as Roman. ............ The Holy Roman Empire (800 AD -1806 AD) was centered in what is now Germany (including parts of France & Italy). The HRE had no connection , except in name, to either the Western or Eastern Roman Empires.
Load More Replies... Jayeff Vee 1 year ago
"In Istanbul, where we met, she was dancing in a small cafe, the Lido by the sea." Dave Lambert
Rich Black 1 year ago
He came to northa america 40 years before columbus? Did queen Isabella know this before she paid for the expedition,?
#44
The third most deadly war in history (after the 2 world wars) was in China from 1850 to 1864. It was started by a cult leader who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus. He and his followers sought to overthrow the Emperor and set up a quasi-Christian theocracy. In the end the rebellion left 10% of China's population dead. Edit: And of course fun fact- the leader of the Imperial forces was General Tso who later got a chicken dish named after him.
Spidercat 1 year ago
A previous post suggests the Congo war that ended in 2003 as the third deadliest war....never trust anything you read on the Internet people. Just look at the pretty pictures and wait for the climate war... Gonna be lit.
Uwe Münch 1 year ago (edited)
The Congo -war is mentioned as the "Deadliest conflict since world war II" so this post - the rebellion obviously happening before both world wars - doesn´t contradict that post
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John Dilligaf 1 year ago
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War. Estimates of the death toll range between 20 and 30 million people.
Rich Black 1 year ago
It's 2024 now. China still isn't a democracy. It's ruled by a cult leader who wants to eliminate democracy worldwide.
Jess Smith 1 year ago
I believe it's the Taiping Rebellion: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion.
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
What don't we have? Quasi-Christian theocracy?
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TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago (edited)
The 30 year war here in Europe from 1618 to 1648 was more devastating in regards of human lives lost than each World War in terms of casualities per capita
#45
Romans knew lead was poisonous. They still used it a lot.
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 1 year ago
It was added to wine to make it sweeter.
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Melissa Harris 1 year ago (edited)
We knew lead was toxic and allowed it to be added to gasoline for decades. The last county to use leaded gas (Algeria) only stopped in 2021.
tuzdayschild 1 year ago
Look up Clair Cameron Patterson. He worked hard and put up with a lot of opposition to get lead out of gas.
Load More Replies... TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago
It was popular due to it's reaction with wine (acid), which caused lead salt to be resolved into it and make the taste sweeter
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Why the downvote? It's true. Lead salt tastes sweet. It's why back when they used lead in paint, kids would eat paint chips.
Load More Replies... Ace 1 year ago (edited)
I grew up in a house with lead plumbing, and we always ran the water for a while to clear out what had been sitting in the pipes and never used the hot tap for cooking or drinking water. The Romans usually used running water or stone cisterns which would avoid the problem.
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
They didn't know the full extent of it's danger like we do now but they new it was damaging to some ectent
Bettye McKee 1 year ago
Women used lead-based makeup, then had to use more makeup to cover the sores caused by the lead.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
We really shouldn't point out the folly of Romans when lead is still be used today. Proving once again, the superior brains of humans over other animals.
#46
There is no such date as September 3, 1752. Because of the conversion from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in England and its colonies, September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752. There was also no such thing as any date between January 1, 1751, and March 24, 1751. Prior to 1751, the first day of the new year was March 25. Parliament changed that to January 1. As a part of that transition, March 24, 1750 was followed by March 25, 1751, but December 31, 1751 was followed by January 1, 1752.
Delta Dawn 1 year ago
But we can’t manage to get rid of daylight savings time because it would be too complicated
Seanette Blaylock 1 year ago
I don't care about standard vs. daylight, I just really hate the hassle of changeover. I say split the difference and leave it alone after that!
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Ian Webling 1 year ago
Not true. The Gregorian Calendar went into effect in October 1582 in Catholic countries. They all had September 3, 1752.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
That was done to make that particular time period a Speed Bump for TARDISes.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
This is the same reason the Astrological Zodiac doesn't line up with the proper motion of the sun and stars anymore.
John Dilligaf 1 year ago
You do know that England and its colonies were not entire world, right? Turkey, for example, didn't make the switch until 1917. Russia in 1918, and Greece not until 1923. So I assure you in those countries, and many others, September 3, 1752 came right on schedule after the 2nd. ....... In fact there are places in the world that still use the Julian calendar. ............. The 2nd paragraph of this "fact" is just as nonsensical, for the same reason.
Ace 1 year ago (edited)
The post is quite clearly talking about England, unlike so many US-centric posts that make no such clarification.
Load More Replies... Ąåřţđęşịɠŋȿ 1 year ago
wow. That must have been confusing as hell. Especially for folks with birthdays in there....
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago
England had riots. The illiterate peasantry thought eleven actual days had been stolen from their lives.
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#47
During World War II, the United States military developed a plan to use bats as bombs. The idea was to attach small incendiary devices to bats and release them over Japanese cities at night. The bats would then roost in buildings, and when the devices detonated, they would start fires, causing chaos and destruction. While the project, known as "Project X-Ray," never saw combat, it's a bizarre example of the lengths to which military strategists were willing to go during the war.
Dragons Exist 1 year ago
Honestly less weird than the CIA trying (and failing) to kill Castro by putting a pretty shell on the beach with a bomb for him to pick up
PFD 1 year ago
There are loads of these mad plans. You can see the brains sitting around the table: "Blue-sky thinking, outside the box, there are no stupid ideas... Except that one of Bill's with the bats, obviously. Bill, you sit this one out."
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago (edited)
The project gave birth to Napalm and only got cancelled because the Manhatten project was finished before the plan could be executed. Escaped bats also burned down a hangar and a jeep
Morngaur of Gorgoroth 1 year ago
They got this idea from St. Olga of Kiev, who really did it to the town of Korostev, capital of the Drevlian people, where her husband had been murdered. She used birds, though.
Strahd Ivarius 1 year ago
I seem to remember that in the first test the bats came back to their home base and destroyed it...
Vix Spiderthrust 1 year ago (edited)
Better is the story about the American Navy training dolphins to defuse naval mines. On first deployment into open water, the dolphin engineers unanimously ignored their targets and just fu*ked off out to sea.
Load More Replies... Sinnsyk Jakte 1 year ago
Immediately, I had a vision of bats in tiny helmets, strapped with little bombs, being dumped from a plane to the soundtrack of Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries'...
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
It's always better to spend an inordinate amount of time, energy, and money on devasting your opponent than it is to seek peaceful solutions. /s
#48
There was only one monogamous emperor in Chinese history, the Hongzhi emperor of the Ming Dynasty. He apparently invented the toothbrush to impress his wife.
I think when most people think harem they think of a couple of hundred women, but ancient Chinese harems could get *crazy.* There was one emperor in the Tang dynasty who had like 40,000 concubines. A lot of lower ranking concubines never had sex with their emperor and never even saw him. I heard that Wu Zetian (only female emperor) had like 5,000 male lovers and it drove the traditional nobleman insane but I can't find any sources for that lol.
Thomas Grant 1 year ago
40,000 is a teeny bit excessive. Assuming that he lived to be 80 that would be roughly 10-11 concubines a week from the moment of birth. I dont even think i talk to that many people some weeks...
Auntriarch 1 year ago
I'm guessing it was like aristocratic libraries; what mattered was the number of books, nobody assumed that you actually read more than a couple of them
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Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
He wasn't the only monogamous emperor but he was one of the only ones and he is famous for promoting monogamy. He also didn't invent the toothbrush and there's no evidence to suggest that he even gave his wife a toothbrush that's just a myth.
Ryan Smith 1 year ago
"I heard that ___ ...but I can't find any sources for that" pretty much summarizes the majority of posts on BP.
marianne eliza 1 year ago
A harem was for all the women; wives, concubines, sisters, daughters, nieces, mom, grandma, auntie etc.
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago
Presenting one or more concubines as gift for the emperor by his (or her) nobles was quite common in asian and persian monarchies
Shirley Heyn 1 year ago (edited)
So, because he was monogamous, he became an inventor because he had so much extra time. . . or how are these 2 facts at all related? And, why does a monogamous subject branch off to include "harems" and "male lovers". . . and why would you ever expect to find sources for nobleman's insanity due to Wu Zetian?
Rich Black 1 year ago
Mao had more than 3,000 concubines, according to the guardian. Most were illiterate peasant virgins who he only "enjoyed" once
Steve Hall 1 year ago
It took everything I had to be able to put up with one wife, what the hell was he thinking.
Hiram's Friend 1 year ago
It's bad enough when you pi$$ off one woman, what would it be like with even a 100?
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Siaka Stevens was technically both the shortest and longest serving leader of Sierra Leone.
He was an opposition leader that won an extremely close election, and the ruling party that had been ruling the country since independence didn’t want to lose their power, so they planned to arrest him just before he could take the oath of office, but things didn’t go exactly to plan and he ended up being removed from office a little while after taking the oath of office, meaning he was technically president for a little less than an hour before being removed from office.
However, there was a counter coup a few months later and Siaka Stevens was brought back into power. During his time in office, Stevens became increasingly authoritarian and eventually established a one party state, ruling the country for 17 years.
TotallyNOTAFox 1 year ago (edited)
So basically the standard way governments work in most of Africa
Toni Ahlgren 1 year ago
I'm gonna open the can of worms here. Most of the problems in Africa are blamed to be the result of the colonization of European powers. Fast forward to 100 years from that, they still can't have a moment of peace.
Load More Replies... #50
Door knobs were invented in 1848. .
Melissa Harris 1 year ago (edited)
There have been handles, latches and pulls on doors since...doors. It's the round, turning k**b that has an integrated lock that was an improvement on previous designs. Edit: apparently I have to use doorknob as a single word to not offend the elderly British AI
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago
Whether regular kn0bs have existed since the beginning of times...
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
Nope. Doorknobs with a locking mechanism like we would use on a front door today were invented in 1848. The concept of a doorknob has been around longer than that
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
Until then, people had to climb in and out of windows because doors were useless.
Data1001 1 year ago
I always heard it as "dumber than a door nail" -- which makes just as little sense, lol.
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What do you think ?
geezeronthehill 1 year ago
We speak of the stone age because stone tools did not rot away. It is very likely that bone and wooden tools, cordage and fiber containers played at least as important a role in the material culture of our hominid ancestors.
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
I googled every one of these and unlike usual the majority were actually true! Only slight inaccuracies! Congratulations bored panda.
killjoy 1 year ago
lilo nd stich was done just before September 11 2001 but they had to push the release date until 2002 because there was a seen where stich hijacks a plane and flies it through hawai'i crashing into some buildings but they thought it would be too sensitive so they changed it to where he hijacks a ufo and flies through the mountains
Katie Lutesinger 1 year ago
I've seen the deleted footage! As a fortunate side effect, using the spaceship also explains how Jumba and Pleakly got to Earth in the first place. I loved Jumba's line "what, you think we walked here?"
Load More Replies... Disgruntled Pelican 1 year ago
Lol oh god, I'd LOVE to hear the reasoning behind this.
Load More Replies... geezeronthehill 1 year ago
We speak of the stone age because stone tools did not rot away. It is very likely that bone and wooden tools, cordage and fiber containers played at least as important a role in the material culture of our hominid ancestors.
Lydsylou (she/her) 1 year ago
I googled every one of these and unlike usual the majority were actually true! Only slight inaccuracies! Congratulations bored panda.
killjoy 1 year ago
lilo nd stich was done just before September 11 2001 but they had to push the release date until 2002 because there was a seen where stich hijacks a plane and flies it through hawai'i crashing into some buildings but they thought it would be too sensitive so they changed it to where he hijacks a ufo and flies through the mountains
Katie Lutesinger 1 year ago
I've seen the deleted footage! As a fortunate side effect, using the spaceship also explains how Jumba and Pleakly got to Earth in the first place. I loved Jumba's line "what, you think we walked here?"
Load More Replies... Disgruntled Pelican 1 year ago
Lol oh god, I'd LOVE to hear the reasoning behind this.
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