What are some intriguing and/or odd historical facts that you know of? I’ll start us off with three of them:
The brother of John Wilkes Booth saved the life of the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln by pushing him out of the way of an incoming train at a train station in New Jersey.
A nephew of Adolf Hitler served in the US Navy during WW II.
Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
I think Richard Bong died on the day that the Hiroshima bomb was dropped.
I was aware there were a large number of coincidences with Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, but had to look it up again, it included an ‘extra’ coincidence I wasn’t aware of (both succeeded by men named Johnson):
They began their political careers 100 years apart, both elected to Congress in 1846 and 1946 respectively. They became President 100 years apart - 1860 and 1960
Both; had seven letters in their last name, were heavily involved in the civil rights movement, lost children while living in the White House, were assassinated - shot in the head on a Friday.
Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater. Kennedy was in a Ford Lincoln.
Both men’s assassins were killed before facing trial.
Both were succeeded by men named Johnson. Andrew Johnson born in 1808 and Lyndon Johnson born in 1908.
Public education is actually an invention of the stone age. The culture that can be credited with this is actually the Nahua or what we more popularly know as the Aztecs. The ‘stone age’ is a poor mile marker for time as various cultures left it at different times. Since the Aztecs did not have ready access to metals, they relied entirely upon stone tools for almost all things. The megaliths they built that survive to this day, even the floating city of Tenochtitlan? All built with that technology. And, yes, they were the first culture to adopt a tax funded public education system. Granted, it wasn’t secular, leaned heavily into martial skills, and bears little in common with what we’d like to see in such an institution, it still provided education to much of the empire.
Racism actually helped further prove that all of Homo sapiens sapiens share a common ancestor. In the mid '00’s, a CCP sponsored genetic research program challenged a number of Chinese universities to find proof that the Han Chinese descended from a different ancestral hominid than the rest of the world. Once the study was concluded, it was pretty well established that (to the absolute shock of no one educated) they were very much descended from those who migrated out of Africa. The accounts I’ve read indicate the university researchers took some delight in delivering that particular finding. So, once again, we are all Africans.
Romans hated pants/trousers. No, really, during the pre-Christian era of the Roman empire and republic, wearing pants in cities was looked down on. Why? Because, those hideous Britons and Germanians wore them. It was seen as a barbaric article of clothing. No, proper Romans wore a toga. I’m sure legionaries would’ve wore them on campaign in the Northern reaches of the empire, but that was obviously the noble sacrifice a soldier had to make!
Everyone gives Australia guff for the Emu War. But, I’m here to tell the Aussies that you can not only dunk on Americans in this regard, but also Canadians and Mexicans. We have been trying to wipe out coyotes for literal centuries. Humanity is uniquely gifted at driving inoffensive wildlife into extinction, like the Thylacine, but coyotes? Coyotes are insane survivalists. While they aren’t totally solitary, they still don’t really congregate in big packs until mating time. Then, they seem to take stock of the population and respond in kind. In other words, every huge Coyote cull seems to trigger an equal response in reproduction. At least emus have the decency to taste good.
On the topic of canines, Chihuahuas (aside from NOT being dogs and DEFINITELY being yappy little rodents) are descended from pre-contact dogs. They aren’t of European origin. Their earliest ancestors were the Techichi breed, who were created by the Toltecs and Mayans. It’s hypothesized they were a working animal to some degree, too. But, not like dachshunds who were bred to hunt badgers. No, the current hypothesis I’ve found is that they’re living alarms. That explains so much about Chihuahuas.