Bizarre Historical Facts

History 7 Minutes

I came across this article from Reader’s Digest…Historical Facts You’ll Wish Weren’t Really True by Meghan Jones. I thought I’d share it with you.

King Tut’s parents were most likely siblings.

Once you’ve finished shuddering with disgust, here’s what researchers know about the boy king and his family. His father was almost definitely Akhenaten, who preceded Tut as pharaoh in the fourteenth century BC. The identity of his mother is pretty much unknown, but recent DNA samples from his and other mummies have revealed that she was probably one of Akhenaten’s sisters. King Tut was rather frail and suffered from a bone disorder, perhaps due to his parentage. Incestuous relationships, though, weren’t out of the ordinary in ancient Egypt, a fact which is not exactly reassuring. Despite Tut’s health issues, and his short life even by the standards back then (he died at 19), he’s gone down in history as one of Egypt’s most famous and wealthiest pharaohs.

Someone tried and failed to save Abraham Lincoln—and his life just got darker from there.

You’re probably familiar with the 1860s illustration The Assassination of President Lincoln. But who’s that pair sharing the private box with the ill-fated president and his wife? The man on the far left, rushing into action, is Major Henry Rathbone. President and Mrs. Lincoln specifically asked him and his fiancée, Clara Harris, to accompany them to the theater. After Booth fired the shot, Rathbone tried to tackle him to the ground, but Booth was able to get free by slicing Rathbone in the arm with a dagger. Rathbone was never free of the memory and guilt of that night, and he reportedly felt responsible for letting Booth get away. In the years to come, he experienced a myriad of health issues, from stomach ailments to heart palpitations, and his mental state deteriorated as well. On December 23, 1883 (18 years after the assassination), he attacked and killed Clara, now his wife, and attempted to kill himself. He would spend the rest of his life in a mental institution.

In 1494, Europe experienced the closest thing to a real-life zombie outbreak.

Italy’s Renaissance period has a major, though little-known, dark side. Sailors returning from the New World brought with them a massive outbreak of syphilis, which spread through an entire French army. The troops then brought what would become known as “the great pox” to the rest of Europe. With no such thing as antibiotics back then, the disease was able to spread unchecked—and its effects were nasty. The skin on victims’ faces would essentially rot away from the disease’s grisly ulcers. In some cases, the noses, lips, or other body parts of the affected people were essentially gone, and several of the victims eventually died from the disease. So while there was a lot to love about the Renaissance in Europe, the concurrent syphilis outbreak was basically the real-world version of the zombie apocalypse. No big deal.

19th-century New Englanders dug up a young woman’s body… because they thought she was a vampire.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of the Salem Witch Trials, but what about the “Rhode Island Accused Vampire”? In the late 1800s, a bout of tuberculosis (then called “consumption”) struck Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and the residents didn’t know what to make of it. Since its victims tended to look sunken, pallid, and drained, people assumed that they’d fallen prey to vampires. So, naturally, a “vampire hunt” soon commenced. When members of an Exeter, Rhode Island family began dying of consumption one after the other, the other townspeople decided that someone in the family must be “feeding” on the others. Even after the mother, Mary Brown, and her two daughters had died, the townspeople decided to exhume the dead bodies, suspecting that one might, in fact, be “undead.”

Brown’s 19-year-old daughter Mercy had died much more recently than her family members, so her body was in much better condition. Her heart even still contained some decayed blood—a sure sign of vampirism, in those days. So, to prevent her from “striking” again, they burned her heart and liver and mixed the ashes with water. They then gave the concoction to another affected townsperson as a “cure.” Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

Thomas Edison created a seriously creepy baby doll.

For all of his successful inventions, Thomas Edison did experience a pretty major failure when he tried to create the first-ever talking dolls. His 1877 development of the tinfoil phonograph was a major breakthrough in terms of sound recording, and the endless possibilities for this technology were not lost on Edison. In 1890, thanks to the development of the wax cylinder, he was able to produce a line of baby dolls. With wooden bodies, porcelain heads, and miniature phonographs in their chests, the dolls were unlike anything the world of toys had ever seen—or heard—before. The phonographs played back recordings of young women reciting nursery rhymes like “Hickory Dickory Dock” and “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.”

And if ever there were dolls that deserved their own horror flick, it was these. The old, garbled technology, the shrill voices, and the dolls’ eerie faces combine to make them into nightmare fuel for us today. But that’s not actually the reason the dolls were unsuccessful. Their failure was due more to several different things; the pieces were easy to lose, the sound didn’t last long and was hard to understand, and the mini phonographs were highly breakable. And, finally, the dolls were simply expensive.

Dentures used to be made from the teeth of dead soldiers.

Why have false teeth when you can have real teeth?! That must have been the mentality of nineteenth-century dentists. They combated the outbreak of tooth decay with makeshift dentures—ivory base plates with real human teeth attached. Scavengers were already looting corpses from the Battle of Waterloo for their teeth, and now they could sell the teeth to dentists. The dentists would boil the choppers, cut off the roots, attach them to ivory plates, and sell them to customers. Mental Floss doubts that the customers had any idea where the teeth came from. Whether that makes it more or less creepy is up to you to decide.

Researchers once turned a cat into a telephone. A live cat.We know what you’re thinking: “You’ve got to be kitten me!” Well, unfortunately not. In 1929, a pair of scientists at Princeton University wanted to test how the auditory nerve perceives sound. Their test subject was a heavily sedated, but alive, cat. The scientists, Ernest Wever and Charles Bray, cut out part of its brain and attached one end of a telephone wire to its auditory nerve and the other end to a receiver. When Bray said something into the cat’s ears, Wever could hear him through the receiver in a soundproof room. Though it might just seem like a sick experiment, it actually did have some beneficial effects; many researchers believe it helped lead to the development of cochlear implants. As for the feline-turned-phone, it incredibly survived the experiment… but Wever and Bray didn’t release it back into the world. Instead, they killed it to see if the experiment would work on a dead cat. It didn’t.

Boston experienced a deadly molasses flood.

This makes the Boston Tea Party look tame. In January of 1919, an enormous molasses tank burst in the North End of Boston. While a molasses flood might sound like a scene from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, it was no laughing matter. The tank contained—and released—nearly two and a half million gallons of the sticky substance, which surged through the streets at a whopping 35 miles per hour. It was essentially a full-on tidal wave, reaching nearly fifteen feet tall and killing twenty-one people. A hundred and fifty more people were injured, and buildings and houses were knocked from their foundations. Emergency responders had trouble reaching the victims since they had to clamber through the sticky sludge. It took Bostonians weeks to clean up the mess, and many residents would claim that, in the summer heat, they could smell the sickly-sweet odor of molasses even years later.

A computer once did in 40 seconds what took a mathematician an entire lifetime.

Say it isn’t so! While not gross or scandalous, this history fact is still something of a downer. William Shanks, a nineteenth-century mathematician, spent his entire life calculating the digits of pi. He successfully calculated the first 527 digits, and found another 180 digits, though those calculations were incorrect. But calculating the first 527 digits is still impressive… or, rather, it was in 1873. In 1958, a computer calculated that same number of digits in less than a minute…and then calculated another ten thousand. Perhaps it’s better poor Shanks wasn’t alive to see that. If it’s any consolation, though, humans did invent that computer.

A king made his subjects worship the corpse of his beloved.

This case of star-crossed lovers got weird fast. In fourteenth-century Portugal, the king’s son, Don Pedro, fell in love with Inês de Castro. There were only a couple of problems with this: for one, his father, King Afonso IV, did not approve, because Inês was illegitimate. For another, Don Pedro was married. His father had arranged for him to marry a noblewoman named Constanza, and Inês was Constanza’s lady-in-waiting. When Don Pedro refused to stop seeing her, the king had her killed. When Don Pedro acceded to the throne two years later, he exhumed her body, had it clothed in royal dress, and “crowned” her queen. According to historical legend, he made the other nobles all kiss her hand as a sign of their devotion.

Source:

Readers Digest

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/historical-facts-youll-wish-werent-really-true/ss-AATdROS

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Published by pat frederick

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123 thoughts on “Bizarre Historical Facts”

  1. Good morning, Miss Pat – ! You are right – I wish all those things weren’t true.

    But then – same for today!

    Just think – our Congress just voted to give billions to a dictator in Ukraine who launders their $$$$ and allegedly traffics child slaves.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. i bet it’s even not so secret–it will be in campaign donations…thru shell non profits and such…they’ve been at this a long time…they have the apparatus in place

        Liked by 2 people

      1. I have a fantasy of a thousand ‘Cousin Eddies’ in old campers surrounding the US Capitol – and accidentally simultaneously letting their sewage tanks leak all over the place – once so the stench of this Congress would be illustrated and smelt in no uncertain terms.

        Liked by 2 people

  5. from tcth

    Citizen 817
    December 26, 2022 12:26 am

    @realDonaldTrump

    15h
    On this very cold but beautiful Christmas Day, look at our Nation NOW on the Southern Border compared to only a short time ago during the Trump Administration. We had the most SECURE Border in our history, versus the “horror show” that is happening now, with record setting numbers of people, many of them hardened Criminals (including Killers, Human Traffickers and Drug Dealers), POURING INTO OUR COUNTRY at a rate the likes of which we have never seen before. The USA is dying from within!!!

    Like

    1. Citizen 817
      December 26, 2022 12:27 am

      @realDonaldTrump

      8h
      THE RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS HAVE WEAPONIZED THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN THE USA. WITH NO BORDERS AND CROOKED ELECTIONS, OUR COUNTRY IS IN THIRD WORLD TROUBLE!!!

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Like

  8. Citizen 817
    Citizen 817
    December 26, 2022 12:29 am

    Stephen Miller
    1D
    As you consider the magnitude of this nightmare, also consider this: the single best chance we had of stopping Biden’s mass releases was a short-term CR until House GOP gets in. Senate GOP leaders instead made a deal with Schumer to put open borders on autopilot for 1 more year

    Like

  9. HA…lie once and no one believes anything you do or say you do…article picks apart ultra maggot’s trimming the tree photo

    Charlotte99
    December 26, 2022 2:04 am

    Joe Biden Decorates The Christmas Tree At The White House Late On Christmas Eve But There Are So Many Things Wrong With This Photo

    https://mytruthnews.com/joe-biden-decorates-the-christmas-tree-at-the-white-house-late-on-christmas-eve-but-there-are-so-many-things-wrong-with-this-photo/

    Liked by 1 person

  12. dishing the dirt on stacey
    FTA
    The Democrats, specifically those in the Peach state, are masters of luring the young vote towards the cult of progressivism. Abrams was that movement’s grand poohbah. But not anymore; even the most stalwart of supporters, once dazzled by dreams of free stuff and world peace, are beginning to come out of the ether.

    The allegations of misspending on the youth vote are among the most egregious if true. Several staffers have relayed to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that a house was rented for the sole purpose of – not housing staffers – but creating TikTok videos. TikTok was abandoned, and a few of Abrams’ aides moved into the vacant five-bedroom craftsman-style house, with a hefty $12,500 a month rent, as a makeshift office. The campaign also had a swag wagon. Yes, a traveling dispensary of free Abrams Koozies, hoodies, t-shirts, and other cool collectible political attire that will litter Georgia’s many thrift stores soon enough. One anonymous tattler bemoaned the seemingly random consultant and polling line items as costly with no apparent purpose considering the campaign refused to adjust to trends in the lead-up to the crushing loss.

    Abrams paid well: even offering benefits to her staff. But in the fall, she whacked a program that allowed employees to schedule mental health sessions. Yes, you read that correctly. So much for post-election therapy. One anonymous former staffer said it was “brutal timing.” And staffing became a net zero return just prior to the election. Cutting a television ad budget in half sent alarm bells clanging: The Abrams for Governor organization was apparently dead broke. Campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo, who has spun a narrative of “redirecting assets,” now admits spending was reckless and not calculated with much of a strategy. And even Democratic strategist Chris Huttman admitted to Axios that Abrams’ two statewide campaigns had a “well-documented habit” of tossing money around. Once Abrams lost – and this time conceded – the election, within days, 180 employees were sent packing with a small bonus and no outlook for employment.

    One Georgia Democratic Party official spoke on the record (anonymously to attempt to keep the peace): “It’s incredibly bad planning, and it shows where their values are at. You can’t look up one day and realize you can’t pay the bills.”

    https://www.libertynation.com/stacey-abrams-misspent-youth-funds-surprise/

    Liked by 1 person

        1. how you doing?
          we’re at 10*!
          tried calling my mom from the house last evening…didn’t work.
          she got bits and pieces so hubby and i tried telling her we’re going to try to get out and into town this afternoon and we’ll call then…

          Liked by 1 person

  21. “How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate — The platform suppressed true information from doctors and public-health experts that was at odds with U.S. government policy.”

    By David Zweig
    Monday, Dec 26, 2022

    EXCERPT: “By the time reporter David Zweig got to the 10th floor conference room at Twitter Headquarters on Market Street in San Francisco, the story of the Twitter Files was already international news. Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, Leighton Woodhouse, Abigail Shrier, Lee Fang and I had revealed evidence of hidden blacklists of Twitter users; the way Twitter acted as a kind of FBI subsidiary; and how company executives rewrote the platform’s policies on the fly to accommodate political bias and pressure.

    What we had yet to crack was the story of Covid. David has spent three years reporting on Covid—specifically the underlying science, or lack thereof, behind many of our nation’s policies. For years he had noticed and criticized a bias not only in the mainstream media’s coverage of the pandemic, but also in the way it was presented on platforms like Twitter. We couldn’t think of anyone better to tackle this story. — BW

    https://www.thefp.com/p/how-twitter-rigged-the-covid-debate

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I just got done reading Zweig’s thread (and was looking for the thread reader app) when i saw this in the replies…

      Liked by 1 person

        1. it’s freakin frustrating…
          just once, it would be nice to take people at face value…instead of waiting to see IF you’ve seen ALL the faces they have…
          sigh

          Liked by 1 person

  25. SunnyFlower5
    SunnyFlower5
    December 26, 2022 11:40 am

    TRUTH @DC_Draino
    Isn’t it nice that in the middle of a blizzard of disclosures showing the FBI has been censoring Americans online, had multiple informants and agents involved on J6, and raided President Trump’s house, Congress rewarded them with $375 million for a new HQ in the Omnibus?

    Challenge the Bill !!!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. SunnyFlower5
      December 26, 2022 11:34 am

      DC_Draino
      TRUTH @DC_Draino
      So few people discussing this part of the Omnibus Bill
      It amended the Electoral Count Act to clarify the VP’s role is only ‘ceremonial’ and they can’t send fraudulent votes back to states for review
      Only proves Pence *could have* but chose not to like the historic coward he is

      Challenge the Bill

      Liked by 1 person

  29. Alrighty then….LM is now once again ensconced on the patio – had to fool that little bugger! I opened the back garage door, then picked up his food and water dish, with the fleece hoody, and took it inside with me. Man, he’s quick! Scooted right into the bedroom but I caught him and tossed him back out the door. Then I went inside to the patio, put the hoodie on the chair, and called him, shaking his food dish. Of course he came running and while he was feeding his face, I went back into the garage and closed the back door. Phew! It’s always a friggin’ process!

    I said the hell with the wood – not when it’s supposed to hit 40 over the next couple of days! I’ll let the snow melt first! LOL

    Liked by 1 person

  30. copied this from the Q-Tree to share a bit of the flavor of how Christmas was celebrated in my neck of the woods. Love & Blessings to All!!!

    Hope all Q-Treepers had a Very Merry Christmas!

    We had a pretty busy Christmas Eve w/ Hubby playing bass at 2 services at his church–Josiah, our house guest, & I attended the 1st one. We Were going to attend the candlelight service at our old church afterwards but plans changed due to dinner challenges & me needing to go straight home to get a roast in the oven. Michael had marinated it overnight in burgundy, soy sauce, olive oil, brown sugar, garlic, & rosemary & boy was this Tasty in combo w/ the many veggies in the huge, cast iron skillet. Weather challenges kept others at home so we dined w/ just our household.

    Yesterday “began” w/ Hubby’s traditional Monkey Bread brunch, this time augmented w/ link sausages & scrambled eggs. I’d gotten our ham, contributed by my mom (& it was $6/pound now in “Bye-Done’s” economic disaster), in the slow cooker the night before on a bed of sliced onions & covered by sliced pineapple, the juice, dijon mustard, & honey for a delicious, hassle free feast. We had oven roasted garlic potatoes; acorn squash w/ butter, brown sugar, & salt; kale salad; & dinner rolls.

    We’d laid out appetizers too close to dinner so they got eaten throughout the rest of the evening too: shrimp ring, cucumbers & tomatoes w/ ranch dressing dip, fresh mango, red seedless grapes, chips & salsa & homemade guacamole, & Schuler’s cheese spread & Ritz crackers. There were beverages of choice between milk, water, Pepsi, egg nog, apple cider, coffee, & various adult beverages: Bailey’s Irish Cream, bourbon, beer, hard seltzer, hard cider, & sparkling margaritas so even w/ these choices there was no over indulging. Oh & there were candies & cookies overflowing.

    Deserts were all homemade. I made English toffee brownies, Mom did a fruit crisp, & my daughter, always a creative & artistic baker, brought a visual & gustatory feast of multiple cookies she spent hours creating & decorating to perfection, & a peppermint fluff desert that was beautiful to observe & the perfect after meal treat to eat.

    All of our kids & spouses made it over, except Brandon, who was spending the weekend w/ his girlfriend’s family in Toronto, though they called in via zoom to interact with most of us in the evening. Our granddaughter was by early for brunch & stockings, & later for dinner & presents though she & our daughter-in-law’s time were limited by the baby’s sleeping & eating (nursing) needs. As our daughter is due in April we should have 2 grandbabies to celebrate next Christmas!

    Our Zoom call w/ B & GF took an interesting turn when various people began grilling them about their intentions & they implied that they were on a several year’s plan to head toward marriage. Mom piped up about their need to speed things up since basically she still wanted to be alive to see them wed–given she’s in her 80’s she doesn’t want to be waiting for years…we’ll see. B has completed his schooling & practicals & passed all the needed exams, except one he has yet to take, in order to get working as a firefighter. He’s interviewing w/ a local company & getting his resume out there so hopefully he lands a job in that arena soon. His current company is willing to let him continue to work PT so he May have the ability to get some of his financial burdens paid off sooner, but that’s all in God’s hands…his GF has plans to go to law school so their potential marriage is still pretty far in the future…

    We’re supposed to do Christmas round Two when Brandon is back in town & when his GF is able to swing a visit, possibly in mid January. We didn’t get through as much of the “family Christmas stocking”, sort of grab bag craziness that I usually do, nor some of the crazy present games that have become a playful tradition. I’d hoped to get roughly half of that done yesterday then save the rest for when B can join us…oh well more chaos will continue.

    All in all it was a very nice Christmas filled w/ family, food, & fun. We are thankful to be so blessed! God has been very good to see us through a pretty crazy year! ❤

    Love & Blessings to All Q-Treepers & fellow travelers. You all bless & challenge me in so many ways & I am so very thankful to be part of Wolf’s Pack & Den! May the Lord continue to strengthen & equip us for the battles ahead & may He grant us grace & wisdom to assist those around us with protection, truth, & freedom! In Jesus’ Love

    Liked by 1 person

  31. so hubby got done plowing the driveway and drove my Jeep up the driveway and left the plow at the bottom. the plan was for us to go into town, grab the mail, call mom and then drop him at the bottom of the driveway. i would drive the jeep back up and he would bring the tractor up.
    sigh
    he came into the house and said you won’t be able to drive the jeep up the driveway, it’s still too tricky. he is going to WALK DOWN the driveway and drive the tractor up and then he’ll drive us into town.
    the stream is a big mess he said…4 inch thick ice which the tractor broke thru at one spot so he had to use the plow to break it all up–now there’s big drop offs at either end…dang…
    gonna be a long winter

    Liked by 1 person

  33. “Merry Christmas to Me — Christmas Noël of baby Thor”

    Robert W Malone MD, MS
    52 min ago

    EXCERPT: “Whelp, it happened and just when we least expected it! A pure black Christmas colt! The perfect end to a perfect day.

    We have had a friend (Justine Isernhinke) spend her Christmas holiday with us – as she often does. Which means a few lazy days of talking, working, walking and eating.

    So, we had a lovely Christmas morning, followed by an even lovelier afternoon with our son, his wife and our grandchildren. Then we headed to Tad and Kelly Coffin’s house for dinner. Wherein Kelly and Tad had created an amazing organic feast of eclectic “leftover” foods, as they have been hosting large family gatherings for days. After dinner, we talked politics, horses, dogs and a zillion other topics.

    Later, this little guy was born! This is the culmination of almost fifteen years of work. Pictured below, all registered pure blood Lusitano mares:

    Great Grandmother (one of our foundation mares): B-Caranja
    Grandmother: Haute Tantra CAL
    Mother (Dam): Magnolia CAL (the gray one)


    More Pics/History: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/merry-christmas-to-me

    Liked by 1 person

  34. sliding down –just like the dang driveway!
    we’re back…thank heavens hubby drove. one of the steepest parts of the driveway is the very top–we started sliding from the getgo. hubby let off the brake and got control of it quickly (i would have been screaming at that point) but I was busy praying. from then out it went smoothly. till we got to the stream–the drop off is steep–the gentle slope in and out of the stream is gone–ice has formed and it’s really a drop in and a climb to get out!

    I should have taken pix–the chunks of ice he managed to take out of the stream are 4 inches thick by 2 feet wide! damn…

    Like

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