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30 Historical Trivia Tidbits That Cooked Our Noodles

Turns out modernity doesn’t have a monopoly on weirdos, cranks and maniacs

30 Historical Trivia Tidbits That Cooked Our Noodles

September 18, 2023

History has a reputation for being boring, but it can be interesting if we dig deeper into how certain historical figures actually lived, or if its retelling leaned a little more R-rated . Which is what we’re here for — providing historical facts that will both blow your mind and not remotely resemble the sanitized version you learned in school.

30

Shakespeare

Your English teacher probably convinced you that Shakespeare was a prim and proper fop who wrote elegant plays full of flowery speeches. WHAT THEY LEFT OUT Shakespeare's plays filled were with dirty jokes and crude language, and some of his plots were full-on sick. We're talking kidnapping, rape, dismemberment, murder, and cannibalism. Seriously. He was the Quentin Tarantino of his day. CRACKEDG William Shakespeare Henry Titus Andronicus King Lear. — Source: 22 Historical Stories That Left Out The Best Details

29

In 1955, Rosa Parks made headlines and history when she refused to give up her seat on the bus. WHAT THE HEADLINES LEFT OUT Parks wasn't the first woman arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white man. She wasn't even the first in her home town. She was carefully chosen to be the face of the civil rights movement. The NAACP was a very smart, media-savvy organization that knew the importance of picking the right spokesperson. CRACKED.COM http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/rosa-parks — Source: 22 Historical Stories That Left Out The Best Details

28

NBC, Fox, BBC, and even Discovery have been reporting that experts think Nessie might be dead. Is the Loch Ness Monster dead? The end of Nessie: Researchers fear Loch Ness monster STV 2010 15.57 may be dead Loch Ness Monster Dead? Say It Ain't So Nessie! WHAT THEY LEFT OUT The Loch Ness Monster, and the photos that supposedly prove its existence, are a confessed hoax. For example, the Surgeon's Photo was debunked in 1994, when a man named Christian Spurling explained that his father-in-law Marmaduke Wetherall had staged the picture using a fake monster head attached to an 18-inch toy submarine. CRACKED.COM http://hoaxes.org/nessie.html — Source: 22 Historical Stories That Left Out The Best Details

27

In 1978, Hooker Chemical had to pay a steep fine and relocation fees for selling a toxic waste dump as a site for a school at Love Canal. FOR less The Jithin require WHAT THE FOLK SINGERS DIDN'T KNOW: Despite the fact that they'd actually exceeded federal regulations with their cleanup efforts, Hooker Chemical told school officials that the site would be a horrifically bad place to build a school and refused to sell them the land. The school board threatened to seize the land by eminent domain, SO Hooker finally relented and sold it to them for one dollar, — Source: 22 Historical Stories That Left Out The Best Details

26

Amelia Dyer murdered 400 babies. Customers paid the 19th-century orphanage nurse a fee, and once the check cleared, she just left the babies lying around neglecting them until they died. When she decided that wasn't happening fast enough, she resorted to strangling them with white tape CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

25

A 1927 school disaster killed one-sixth of a town's population. A Michigan school board treasurer killed his wife and blew up his farm with dynamite, which detonated the same time as explosives he planted at the nearby Bath Consolidated School. 58 people were injured and 45 killed- in a tiny village of 300 residents. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

24

Marie Delphine LaLaurie kept a torture mansion. When an 1834 fire attracted a crowd, they found a 70-year-old slave woman chained to a stove. She directed the mob to the attic, where seven slaves were suspended from the ceiling by spiky collars, apparently kept alive solely for horrifyingly inventive torture. They had been like that for months. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

23

Three years after this photo, Rose Kennedy was lobotomized. Rosemary, who historians agree had some mental ailment (though it definitely wasn't debilitating), was awake throughout the operation. She spent the rest of her life in institutions, far from the public eye, especially when her brother John became president. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

22

In 1514, a Hungarian rebel received a unique punishment. Gyorgy Dozsa was forced to sit on an iron throne while wearing a crown and holding a scepter. The only catch was that all three were red-hot. His fellow rebels-who had been starved -were forced to bite into his burning body and drink his flowing blood. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

21

Jamestown was a cannibalistic disaster. The winter of 1609-1610 turned unexpectedly brutal for the first permanent English settlement in America. One man was convicted of killing and eating his own wife. A recently excavated teenage girl was found with dozens of skull cuts, her temporal bone pried off to reach the brain. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

20

15th-century Spain deployed 250-pound war mastiffs. These were especially effective against enemies with little or no armor. Their powerful jaws easily tore through leather then flesh then bone. When Columbus made his second voyage to the New World and anticipated trouble, he packed some dogs (who were classed as weapons). CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

19

When Vesuvius erupted, heads exploded. Herculaneum saw superheated pyroclastic flows of molten rock, mud, and gas. The skull holds lots of liquids, and if you heat it quickly, it reacts much like a hamster in a microwave. In less than two-tenths of a second, skin vaporized ... brains boiled, and skulls exploded. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

18

A mad serial killer reigned during Rome's most peaceful age. Locusta was freed to help Agrippina poison Emperor Claudius then was freed again to poison Nero's stepbrother. She was finally arrested and executed by Emperor Galba in 69 CE. She was supposedly publicly raped to death by a wild animal, which some sources say was a giraffe. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

17

Lincoln's widow shared this photo of his ghost. Okay, it's not really Lincoln's ghost, and it's not much to look at today. Photo manipulation seemed like magic back then. Cameras probably seemed like magic. Spirit photographer William Mumler handed Mary Todd this photo, and she believed it fully. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

16

Renaissance Florence was plagued with syphilitic zombies. The disease caused flesh to fall from people's faces and the complete destruction of the lips, others of the nose, and others of all their genitals. You'd see people walking around with their faces falling off their exposed skulls until they finally dropped dead. CRACKED.COM — Source: Gruesome Horror Stories The History Books Left Out

15

Just weeks before he died after slamming his Porsche head-on into another vehicle, JAMES DEAN made a PSA for the National Safety Council, 130 warning of the dangers of reckless driving. TAKE IT EASY DRIVING. THE LIFE YOU SAVE MIGHT BE MINE. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

14

George Washington never wore a wig. ITE -SPRINKLE WASHINGTON The kind of hairstyle one would see in most of his portraits was achieved by following a process which includes yanking the hair, gathering and tying it up, and curling the side hairs. The last step is covering his natural, reddish-brown hair with a generous amount of white powder. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

13

Isaac Newton was a waiter. Until he got an undergraduate scholarship, he waited tables at Cambridge. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

12

Like wearing pajamas? You have WWI air raids to thank. In WWI, people were being driven out of their homes by night-time air raids, and they needed warm, practical, and decent-looking sleepwear. So pajamas became hugely popular: they were loose, covered you up, and could be very stylish. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

11

The distinction of being the very first reality show goes to the 1973 PBS mini series An American Family! The show followed the Louds (a large middle class Californian family) which documented their divorce and featured their openly gay son - both rare on TV at that time. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

10

Henry Ford tried to end WWI by sailing to Europe on a Peace Ship. He sailed with a group of pacifists and reporters, planning to convince European soldiers to go on strike When they landed, they were greeted by eight college students in total. The half-million-dollar expedition ended in failure and ridicule. Ford told the pacifists he couldn't go on to Stockholm because he was sick, and then he sailed home on an ocean liner. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

9

When people think of Joan of Arc being burned at the stake it's usually for the crime of being a witch. In actuality she was burned alive for wearing men's clothing, the only thing she was ever formally charged with. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

8

In 1915, a German diplomat fell asleep on a train... and sparked a chain of events that convinced Americans to join World War I. CRACK Heinrich Albert, German diplomat and paymaster of a German spy ring, took a nap holding a briefcase containing their espionage plans. Jolted awake when the train stopped, he rushed out and left his briefcase behind, which was recovered by a US Secret Service agent. The US government leaked the contents to the media, and that effectively turned the public opinion against Germany. — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

7

30 Historical Trivia Tidbits That Cooked Our Noodles — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

6

Mt. Rushmore

MOUNT RUSHMORE WASN'T ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO BE A NATIONAL MONUMENT. THE INITIAL IDEA WAS JUST TO HAVE GIANT SCULPTURES THAT WOULD ATTRACT THOUSANDS OF TOURISTS TO SOUTH DAKOTA. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

5

Ariel-1, Britain's very first satellite, was put into orbit on April 26, 1962. It was as accidentally destroyed weeks later after the US military detonated a 14 megaton nuclear weapon called Starfish-Prime) in the upper atmosphere. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

4

The earliest pillows CRACKED.COM were made of stone. Ancient Egyptian Pillow Neck-rests Ancient Chinese Pillow from Tutankhamen's tomb Originally more about keeping the head away from crawling bugs or protecting an elaborate hairstyle during sleep than a cushion, they evolved into elaborate works of art for the wealthy. They only become a cloth-covered stuffing-fille accessory after the textile revolution. — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

3

Apollo missions increased the moon's temperature by 1-3 degrees Fahrenheit. Dust on the surface is lighter than the soil underneath, and astronauts walking and driving during their explorations disturbed the top layer. With more of the darker soil showing through, the Moon absorbs more heat. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

2

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol just to quickly make some cash. LEL f In the fall of 1843, Dickens was in debt, his wife had just given birth to their fifth child, and the family had moved into an expensive new house. To get a quick injection of cash, Dickens decided to whip UP a Christmas book in six weeks. The result was probably the most famous Christmas story ever written. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

1

A Hollywood movie brought the KKK back to life. The BIRTH OF A NATION In 1871, Ulysses S. Grant eradicated the Ku Klux Klan as an organization. In 1915, the pro-Confederate, pro-KKK movie The Birth of a Nation came out. It was massively popular- the first blockbuster and it inspired an Atlanta preacher to re-establish the KKK. CRACKED.COM — Source: These 47 Facts Will Make You A Walking History Channel

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