Somehow, thinking back about history lessons brings back nothing but a feeling of insurmountable boredom. Yup, the history lessons we’ve had at school brought no joy with all the dates of historical events and horribly bland teaching. Thankfully, later on, the internet was invented (kidding, we’re not that old here!), and we found out how exciting and jaw-dropping our history truly is! And, to share this discovery with you, we’ve compiled a list full of the coolest and the most incredible historical facts. Yup, some of these cool facts are definitely unbelievable, but you’ll see that for yourself.
So, this list will take you down the road of the unexplained as some of these weird historical facts seem to be related more to aliens than to humans. However, if kooky isn’t really your cup of tea, this list also boasts a myriad of fun historical facts. You know, something that wasn’t oh so funny when it actually happened, but now, in retrospect, it looks purely hysterical. In fact, these pieces of interesting history might shed a whole new light on humanity for you! Not necessarily its good part, but exciting nonetheless.
Now, the main question here is this – are you ready to dig deeper with these interesting historical facts? If so, then scroll on down below and check them out! Be sure to give the most unbelievable facts your vote and share this article with all the history buffs you know.
#1
Marie Curie, the famous nobel prize-winning physicist’s notebook still can not be handled safely as it is still radioactive.
Image source: sciencealert.com, Henri Manuel
#2
The word ‘quarantine’ comes from ‘quarantena’, meaning “forty days” in 14th century Venetian. The Venetians imposed a 40-day isolation of ships and people arriving in their lagoon during the Black Death.
Image source: mcgill.ca, cottonbro studio
#3
Since 1945, all British tanks have been equipped with tea-making equipment and facilities.
Image source: warisboring.com
#4
Cleopatra was not Egyptian.
Image source: history.com, Louis le Grand
#5
Charlie Chaplin enrolled in a Charlie Chaplin lookalike competition and he came 20th in rank.
Image source: Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image, amazon.com
#6
Columbus didn’t actually ‘discover’ America. The Vikings’ had early expeditions to North America around the year 1000 A.D.
Image source: npr.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, online collection (The Met object ID 437645)
#7
The Germans and British soldiers paused the war for a day during Christmas Day 1914. They sang, drank and celebrated together.
Image source: history.com
#8
Doctors used heroin to treat cough.
Image source: medicine.yale.edu
#9
The pyramids of Giza were built when pre-historic woolly mammoths were still walking the earth.
Image source: britannica.com, Pradeep Gopal
#10
Vincent van Gogh painted his masterpiece “The Starry Night” in 1889, the same year that Nintendo formed as a corporation.
Image source: vincentvangogh.org, Google Arts & Culture
#11
The Olympics used to award medals for art.
Image source: olympics.com, en.wikipedia.org
#12
Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb.
Image source: britannica.com, loc.gov
#13
A lot of history’s disasters were caused by sleep deprivation.
Image source: npr.org
#14
One of the most successful pirates in history is a woman – Ching Shih.
Image source: atlasobscura.com, en.wikipedia.org
#15
There is more time separating Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex than Tyrannosaurus Rex and us.
Image source: usgs.gov
#16
Pope Gregory IX declared war on the cat population.
Image source: historycolored.com, commons.wikimedia.org
#17
In the battle of Pelusium, the Persians knew that Egyptians worshipped cats and were forbidden to kill them. So the Persians used them as shields.
Image source: worldhistory.org
#18
In Renaissance France, a woman could take her husband to court if he was impotent.
Image source: jstor.org
#19
The 1985 discovery of the Titanic stemmed from a secret United States Navy investigation of two wrecked nuclear submarines.
Image source: nationalgeographic.co.uk, Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart
#20
In WW1 an estimated 37 million people lost their lives and in the last year of WW1 the Spanish flu broke out. The flu took an estimated 50 million lives worldwide.
Image source: cdc.gov, National Museum of Health and Medicine
#21
46 BC was 445 days long and is the longest year in human history. Nicknamed the annus confusionis, or “year of confusion”, this year had two extra leap months inserted by Julius Caesar.
Image source: uh.edu, en.wikipedia.org
#22
During the Victorian period, it was normal to photograph relatives after they died.
Image source: bbc.com
#23
Albert Einstein could’ve been the president of Israel.
Image source: britannica.com, en.wikipedia.org
#24
Space travel was first proposed in the 1600s.
Image source: nasa.gov
#25
A Japanese soldier never realized WWII was over until 1974.
Image source: bbc.com, Malacañang Palace
#26
Buddhist monks used to mummify themselves alive.
Image source: atlasobscura.com
#27
Mauritania is the world’s last country to abolish slavery, and the country didn’t make slavery a crime until 2007.
Image source: qz.com, aboodi vesakaran
#28
A 17-Year-Old high school student designed the current U. S. flag.
Image source: americanhistoryco.com, Gage Skidmore
#29
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was never upright.
Image source: leaningtowerpisa.com
#30
In 18th Century England, pineapples were a status symbol.
Image source: bbc.com, Justine Alipate
#31
Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 is generally considered to be the shortest war in history, lasting for a grand total of 38 minutes.
Image source: historic-uk.com
#32
Nordlingen is a German town built inside a 14 million-year-old meteorite crater.
Image source: smithsonianmag.com, Wolkenkratzer
#33
Before alarm clocks, knocker-uppers was a profession where they had to go and wake up by knocking on the doors of the townsman houses.
Image source: bbc.com
#34
4% of the Normandy beaches are made up of shrapnel from the D-Day Landings.
Image source: bldgblog.com
#35
John F. Kennedy, Anthony Burgess, Aldous Huxley, and C.S. Lewis all died on the same day.
Image source: medium.com
#36
100 imposters claimed to be Marie Antoinette’s dead son.
Image source: history.com, en.wikipedia.org
#37
Captain Morgan was a real person.
Image source: historic-uk.com
#38
Richard Nixon was an extremely talented musician. He played five instruments in total: piano, saxophone, clarinet, accordion, and violin.
Image source: history.com, Ollie Atkins
#39
During the Great Depression, people made clothes out of food sacks.
Image source: en.wikipedia.org
#40
In her later years, Queen Elizabeth I’s teeth were black and decayed from too much sugar.
Image source: sciencedirect.com, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger
#41
The world’s oldest film is only 2 seconds long.
Image source: historyofinformation.com, Louis Le Prince
#42
In 1834, ketchup was sold as a cure for indigestion by an Ohio physician named John Cook.
Image source: bestfoodfacts.org
#43
The first toy advertised on TV is Mr. Potato Head.
Image source: bigcommerce.com, National Institutes of Health
#44
The first one GB hard drive was made in 1980 and had a price of forty thousand USD.
Image source: mydatarecoverylab.com
#45
One of the reasons Hollywood moved from New York to Los Angeles is to escape Thomas Edison’s patents.
Image source: jstor.org, Alex Barnes
#46
The shipbuilders Harland and Wolff insist that the Titanic was never advertised as an unsinkable ship.
Image source: britannica.com, Robert Welch
#47
In the Salem witch trials, the accused witches weren’t actually burned at the stake. The majority were jailed, and some were hanged.
Image source: history.com
#48
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton lost the nuclear launch codes.
Image source: bbc.com
#49
Winston Churchill smoked 8 to 10 cigars a day.
Image source: biography.com, National Archives and Records Administration
#50
The British Royal Air Force accidentally sunk a ship full of holocaust victims in 1945.
Image source: theconversation.com
#51
Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. were both born in 1929.
Image source: britannica.com, britannica.com
#52
Gandhi wrote Hitler a letter imploring him to rethink the war.
Image source: time.com, Prashant Purbey
#53
England’s king George I was actually German.
Image source: britannica.com
#54
Turkeys were once worshipped like gods.
Image source: history.com, Kranthi Remala
#55
The former head of Cuban intelligence, Fabian Escalante, told a British documentary team the CIA had tried to kill Fidel Castro more than 600 times, over a period of about 40 years.
Image source: abc.net.au
#56
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to congress before women could vote.
Image source: history.house.gov, Bain News Service
#57
The Soviet Union and the United States were supposed to go to the Moon together during the Cold War.
Image source: history.com
#58
Egyptians used slabs of stones as pillows.
Image source: egypttoday.com, AussieActive
#59
Genghis Khan created one of the first international postal systems.
Image source: cambridge.org, en.wikipedia.org
#60
Tablecloths were originally designed to be used as one big, communal napkin.
Image source: atlasobscura.com
#61
Women were once banned from smoking in public.
Image source: history.com
#62
The U.S. government poisoned alcohol during prohibition.
Image source: prohibition.themobmuseum.org
#63
Abraham Lincoln is in the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Image source: nwhof.org, Alexander Gardner
#64
The automobile was first invented and perfected in Germany and France in the late 1800s.
Image source: history.com
#65
The Great Molasses Flood killed 21 people and injured 150 others in Boston.
Image source: history.com
#66
Historians became a professional occupation in the late 19th century.
Image source: jstor.org
#67
The world’s oldest parliament is from Iceland and is called Althing.
Image source: britannica.com, Jóhann Heiðar Árnason
#68
The shortest term for a U.S. president was only 2 months.
Image source: whitehouse.gov, James Lambdin
#69
Since the end of WWI, over 1,000 people have died from leftover unexploded bombs.
Image source: smithsonianmag.com
#70
Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times.
Image source: education.nationalgeographic.org
#71
Mary actually had a little lamb.
Image source: modernfarmer.com
#72
Lyndon B. Johnson gave interviews from the bathroom.
Image source: Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary, Arnold Newman
#73
July 4th isn’t the real Independence Day.
Image source: constitutioncenter.org, Stephanie McCabe
#74
In 1913 Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky, and Tito all lived in Vienna for a couple of months.
Image source: bbc.com
#75
When the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine on 30 July 1945 survivors were left in the water for four days, during which time around 600 men died of exposure, dehydration, and shark attacks. Estimates of the number who died from shark attacks range from a few dozen to almost 150.
Image source: smithsonianmag.com
#76
Napoleon took an estimated 150,000 horses with his army as he rode into Russia in 1812, only an estimated 1,600 came back.
Image source: history.com
#77
Walt Disney didn’t draw Mickey Mouse.
Image source: kcur.org, amazon.com
#78
In WWI French made a fake Paris to try and fool German bomber pilots.
Image source: npr.org
#79
The Dutch declared a war against the Royalists but no battles happened. It went on for 335 years.
Image source: atlasobscura.com
#80
The earliest known lottery was during the Chinese Han Dynasty between 205 – 187 BC.
Image source: lotterycritic.com
#81
In 1710, Native American leaders traveled to Britain to visit the Queen.
Image source: npg.si.edu
#82
Marie Antoinette never said “Let them eat cake.”
Image source: history.com
#83
Andrew Jackson had a vulgar parrot.
Image source: washingtonpost.com, Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl
#84
Joseph Stalin edited photos for censorship.
Image source: history.com
#85
The Kentucky meat shower is still unexplained.
Image source: scientificamerican.com
#86
Between 1900 and 1920, Tug of War was a legitimate event at the Summer Olympics.
Image source: olympics.com
#87
Fox Tossing was once a popular sport.
Image source: historycollection.com, en.m.wikipedia.org
#88
Pope Pius II’s ‘The Tale of Two Lovers’, an erotic novel, was the 15th century’s most popular book.
Image source: museumfacts.co.uk
#89
Paul Revere never actually shouted, “The British are coming!”
Image source: history.com, John Singleton Copley
#90
Thanksgiving, as most Americans have been taught is not exactly accurate. In truth, native people did not willingly hand off their country to the invaders.
Image source: smithsonianmag.com
#91
The Aegean Sea owes its name to a man who jumped in it and died.
Image source: santonet.gr, Johnny Africa
#92
The supposed Iron Maiden torture device never actually existed.
Image source: livescience.com
#93
The earliest known bronze gun, that employed gunpowder, was from the early Yuan dynasty and dates back to 1332.
Image source: depts.washington.edu
#94
The Circus Maximum in Rome is still the largest capacity sports arena ever built.
Image source: britannica.com
#95
Using forks used to be seen as sacrilegious.
Image source: leitesculinaria.com, Julian Wallner
#96
Johnny Appleseed was real.
Image source: history.com, en.wikipedia.org
#97
Humanity received the first extraterrestrial signal in 1977.
Image source: astronomy.com
#98
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Founding Fathers and the 2nd and 3rd Presidents of the United States respectively, died within hours of each other on July 4.
Image source: history.com
#99
George Washington opened a whiskey distillery after his presidency.
Image source: smithsonianmag.com
#100
The 1929 Wall Street crash did not cause a rash of suicides.
Image source: history.com
#101
The oldest Bible is over thousands of years old.
Image source: codexsinaiticus.org
#102
Helicopter hieroglyphs were once found in an Egyptian petroglyph.
Image source: atlasobscura.com
